


Love In His Own Eyes

by shadowintheshade



Series: The World's Wrongs All Redressed [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Confusion, Coronavirus, Information overload, M/M, Man Out of Time, Modern Era, Past Character Death, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Female Character, discussions of racism, discussions of transgender issues, disorientation, if it counts when it's arthur who died?, it's 2020, loneliness past, the modern world makes no sense ok, trigger warnings for it being 2020?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:10:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowintheshade/pseuds/shadowintheshade
Summary: Arthur wakes up on Glastonbury Tor in 2020 and the world has changed. Luckily Merlin is there to navigate him through the twenty-first century.Part of a series with "I Woke Up On This Hill (And I Was Just a Concept)"....which I guess functions as like a prologue to this one which is going to be much longer :-)
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: The World's Wrongs All Redressed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910164
Comments: 18
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**1.**

The shop smells of herbs and incencse, sandlewood and cloves. His nose is attuned to the scent of rosemary, polished wood and something grainy. Here, too, is the almost ubiquitous odour of frankincense and myrhh that slips from the doors of half the shops they have passed. Here is the genltle chime of bells, and the first panel of wood sinks down a little as you step on it, as you close the door behind you and walk into this, this little haven of warm wood and faint smoke, this place that seems almost familiar, half remembered, a place from his own time -

“Like Gaius's rooms,” he murmurs, half dazed, and Merlin turns at at the counter and grins and that too is familiar and he wants to fall against him again and be held, feel the familiar heartbeat, smell the herb and horse of him, feel warm breath on his face that reminds him of what it is to be alive. He does not quaver so hard yet, just looks around the shop in wonder. The clutter of it is more organised on closer glance, the shelves semi-ordered into bottles and vials of glimmering liquids, miniature rolled up scrolls and then crystals and jars, feathers and cloths and items that might be jewellry or something else, that either way glitter like the whole place is one big magpie nest. Two slatted wooden staircases lead up to a narrow mezzanine area where there are more shelves, these ones containing mostly books, bunches of herbs hanging down between the slats, sage and lavender, marjoram and thyme, everything trailing little white labels with notes and prices in Merlin's spidery, inky scrawl.

“Yes,” Merlin nods - “Come on -” he propels Arthur gently through the bead curtain behind the counter and up a narrow flight of stairs through the back.

“You live here?”

“The shop's mine -”

“Yeah, yeah I think I got that from the name -”

“ - and I live in the flat above.” Merlin rolls his eyes and smiles in the manner Arthur realises he should have recognised as affection centuries ago.

The sign on the door said simply _Merlin's._ It was no stranger than anything else around here, and less strange than a great deal. They had clung to each other at the foot of the hill until their arms were numb and they had to move for all it felt like pain to do it.

“Come on,” Merlin had said - “Let's get you home.”

“Home?”

“My home anyway. I live just down there in the town – I'll show you.” He had taken hold of Arthur's hand and led him like a child.

“It'll look – strange,” he nodded - “don't be scared, though – there's a lot to explain.” Arthur had nodded numbly and let himself be led.

“How did you know?” was the first question that he asked, and there were a song of them in his head, each one a lyric lined up to fall from him until the final ending beats were out - “Or – do you always come up here?”

“Mmhm,” Merlin nodded, walking just slightly ahead through the dusk light trees - “Every day. I have done ever since -” he had stopped. They both knew he did not want to say _since you died_ \- “But yeah, I knew. Sorry I was late, I was at Avebury when I felt it.” He did not tell Arthur more, not then, how the knowledge had sung up to him through the stone circles, looping all around him like visible magic, like smoke with hands shoving him back to the Tor, the knowledge of Arthur's return crackling through his veins like fireworks. He did not tell him – not so soon – about the almost frantic drive back to Glastonbury, heart hammering in his chest the whole way.

“You knew,” Arthur echoes - “Like with magic?”

“Yes.”

“You – still have that?”

“Yes. It doesn't just go away. I got here as quick as I could when I knew, but how – how long have you been here?”

“I -”

Time. The whole idea of time. It had all become mixed up, swirled around in a witches brew of senselessness. Camelot felt like yesterday, felt like the evening or the night on which you fell asleep and this now was morning – but then again it really had been.

“Morning,” he said - “It was morning.”

“I'm sorry.” Merlin squeezed Arthur's hand - “I'm so sorry. Okay, we're coming to the road now. Be careful.”

It hadn't made sense - wasn't _this_ already a road? But when the dirt track ended, and the trees curved out towards the black hard surface, he could see that this was something else; and stepping onto that strange hardness, all the smells and noises had assailed him like an army, the air choking and wrong, the sounds unnatural and jarring. His eyes had streamed and he had backed away, back towards the trees, the hill, the sky -

“I don't like it.”

“This -” Merlin had prodded the black with his toe. “This is tarmac, it's like concrete -”

“I don't understand.” His streaming eyes had stung him.

“They're new materials, man made materials, nothing that exists in nature - it's like – like a kind of fake rock or – tar? Like if you mixed rock and tar and other matter in a chemical compound – like like alchemy? There's a _lot_ of it, and then there's cars -” he had stopped becase Arthur was still looking at the road distrustfully and the houses beyond and after all, he had no idea how to begin to explain cars.

“I don't like it,” Arthur had repeated stubbornly. “Are those _houses?”_

“Yeah.”

“They're different too.” Arthur said it with a pout, but his chin wobbled.

“Oh -” Merlin's face had crumpled to see him, and he was at his side again in an instant, pulling him to him, chest aching - “Yeah. I'm sorry. Everything's different.”

“Except you.” He had pressed his face into Merlin's shirt for a moment, rubbed his eyes and nose on it not entirely surreptitiously. Merlin sighed.

“What even fabric is this?” He had pulled back, sniffing the shirt suspiciously.

“I dunno, like – cotton? Probably polyester, I don't -”

“Poly what now?”

“More man made materials – I guess it'll take some getting used to.”

“Dunlikeit.”

“You can't keep saying that. Come on. We'll get you in a house, with a bed and some food, how's that?”

“Bed. Like it. Tired.” Arthur sniffed.

“Tired. Well that's just laziness that is, haven't you slept enough?”

“I have been on this hill all day!”

“You've been on this hill a thousand years.”

“Right! So I can be tired if I want to. Shut up Merlin.”

“Hah!” Merlin's lips twisted with old humour, though his chest did that pained clenching thing again - “Now _that_ sounds more like you.”

“Missed me, did you?”

Merlin felt a shudder run through him like a sluice of frozen water at the lightness with which Arthur asked it, feels the weight of _missing_ so hard he feels a million times broken by it, but he couldn't offload all of that on Arthur, not yet, not like this.

“Like a hole in the head,” he forced himself to say - “Ready? The next road is bigger.”

When they come to it Arthur stands on the pavement – Merlin tells him the word – for a long time, staring at the road, the fields beyond, the houses lining it all the way down to the right of them towards the town. The countryside had felt like it had all been cut up, portioned out, flattened and remade like some enormous sculptor had been to work on it. Arthur had nodded, dizzy and curiously flat inside -

“Right,” he had said, still nodding - “Right. This is fine.”

It was obvious to Merlin, obvious even to a part of Arthur, that he was already in shock and Merlin knew with dread that it could only get worse between here and his home, even only a fifteen minute walk away at the top end of the high street. Sure enough the first headlights came out of the deepening dark and a car rushed past, black and fast, and Arthur yelled and reached for a sword that was not there.

“Monsters!” he yelled, and the second one charged past - “You didn't say there were monsters!”

“They're – cars. They're not monsters. They won't hurt you – well I mean they can, if you get in front of them, but – they won't come at you on purpose -”

“You're saying I should try to ignore them and then they won't attack?”

“That's – more or less right, yeah. They're to travel in. Like wagons?”

“There are _people –_ in the monsters?”

“Yes.”

“In their – _bellies?”_

“Um -”

“Are they okay? Are they eaten?”

“No they – uh – they just walk in.”

“They – walk in?”

“Yeah.”

“Into the monsters mouth?”

“Doors.”

“The monsters have doors?”

“Arthur, they're not monsters.”

“The monsters have doors?”

“Yeah, it's no better the second time you say it.”

“This world is – the world is – right. Right. Ignore the monsters.Just – walk?”

“I think that'd be for the best.”

The road as it curved seemed too narrow to Arthur, for all it was already too big, the pavement – Merlin explained that it was the safe place to walk, the place the cars would not come – but it seemed too small, like he could fall off it and die. The houses seemed too high and altogether the scope of everything made his head spin and him feel like he was going to fall. But he followed Merlin dutifully, wondering how anyone survived in this world.

“Cars,” he tried the word out to distract himself from the surroundings, the overload of information.

“Yes. I have one, actually.”

“You – _own_ your own monster?”

“I told you, it's not -”

“I mean, I suppose that _does_ make sense – you spoke to dragons, didn't you?”

“You remember?”

“I was quite out of it, but yes Merlin, I remember – you're a dragonlord, aren't you? So I suppose it makes sense.”

“I'm so glad my being a dragonlord is the level on which car ownership makes sense.”

“Are you being funny with me, Merlin?”

“Yeah. Is it hilarious?”

“No. Shut up Merlin.”

Merlin's chest leaps with joy somehow, every time he hears those three words, like his soul was bare without them, like _shut up Merlin_ is his favourite definition of normality.

Another car whooshed past making Arthur jump. He scolded himself inwardly and looked stoically to his right instead, eyes following the wall, landing on a gate and a sign reading _something gardens._

“There's gardens? Inside the walls?”

“Yeah. Like in the palace grounds, you know? This place – Chalice Wells – suppsoed to be the last resting place of the Holy Grail – it's beautiful. Tomorrow I'll take you there.”

“What's a Holy Gray-al?”

“You know – there's a lot of people'd be really surprised to hear _you_ ask that question.”

“I don't get it.”

“Doesn't matter. Here.”

Merlin had stopped at the shop with the blue door at the top of the high street, which at least more than anything did not look too bad to Arthur; cobblestones and shuttered shop windows, sounds of revelry from a tavern somewhere sounded like – yes. This was alright. This street was his kind of street; this place, Merlin said, home. Home. Such a small word to cover so much promise, so much goodness; he clung onto it like he clung on to Merlin.

Merlin glanced over at Arthur and smiled again, reassuring and open, and like so, so many of their interactions – a lie. He was not sure he had ever bottled up his feelings so hard, not in a millennia and a half of life. Then again he was not sure he had _had_ feelings worth the speaking of since Arthur had been gone. In many ways, he realised now, looking at Arthur looking at him, all that trust and innocence in his eyes – he had been sleeping too, all this time.

And waking up was a bitch. A beautiful, aching, difficult bitch.

__x__

**Could not decide when it came into my head if this fic was gonna be crack, fluff, angst or everything so guess it's gonna be everything :-) The titles of this and the whole series are from "High Noon Over Camelot" by The Mechanisms which is like the best Arthurian retelling other than "Merlin" :-P**

**Next chapter may be a while cause i'm actually gonna be in Glastonbury for a week after this, but on the plus side I'll hopefully come back inspired :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

The polished wood feels real beneath Arthur's hand as he follows Merlin up the narrow staircase, gripping the banister rail as he goes. Everything is strange and he cannot explain the things he sees. He holds back from asking Merlin _everything,_ not wanting to sound stupid but even so -

“How do the candles stay in the glass balls?” he whispers - “And how did you make them come on?”

Merlin flips the light switch a few more times, causing the rosy glow of the bulb beneath the pale red lampshade to dance -

“It's not candles, it's electricity.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“It's like – it's like, if you could catch a bit of lightning and bottle it, and then press a button to make it make light? Sort of.”

“It's magic?”

“No, it's not magic – everyone has it – look -”

At the top of the stairs they stop, and Merlin opens the curtain on the small square window, pointing out at the lights in the houses beyond, the street lamp a few metres down from them -

“Everyone has it. See? All those lights – that's electricity. It's pretty amazing.”

Arthur shakes his head, and turns away from the window. Up here it smells of old wood and paint, a slight smell like ozone in the air in a thunderstorm, which he supposes is the smell of this electrickery stuff, and he knows Merlin _said_ it wasn't magic but _trickery_ definitely feels like the right word for it. It's very bright too, he realises, as Merlin turns on the upstairs light; so much brighter than a candle flame or torch. The light stretches to all corners of the corridor and the rooms beyond, leaving no shadows and making no movement on the floor. He follows Merlin like a somnambulist into the room. There's something large and soft and colourful dominating the room that looks like some sort of big chair, a large black flat shiny thing standing up in the corner that looks like it is probably used for magic but has more of these wires leading from it, like the black wires he can see everywhere, slithering alongside the inner walls like thin snakes. He walks to each of the room's three windows in turn – one leading out onto the main street, another into a narrow alleyway beyond which he can only see a wall, and another looking out across the rooftops of the town. This window is in the strangest place, beside a long counter- some kind of preparation table, made out of another material he cannot guess at, and there's a lot of white square box shapes underneath it. One of them has a door in the front, and when he pulls it there's a sticky sensation but it opens and there are drinks in the inside of the door and tubs of bright materials on the shelves inside. He picks up one of the drinks and it's that black sweet stuff that was in the honesty box on top of the hill. Looks like poison. Does not smell much. It probably _is_ poison, Arthur decides, but since he did not die of it before, he takes a drink of it now, straight out of the bottle.

“Please -” Merlin arches an eyebrow - “Do feel free to help yourself out the fridge. Ah, I see you are.” He sighs, and Arthur frowns.

“Merlin, is that sarcasm?”

“No?”

“It _is._ Do I have to ask permission now?”

“It would be nice. Try not to drink _all_ the coke.”

“Coke,” Arthur tries the word. “Is that what it is? How much will kill me and how much is safe?”

“It won't kill you but - I mean in over large quantities it's not –”

“What are you babbling about? And what _is_ this anyway. It's sweeter than spring flowers.”

“I don't really know – mostly sugar?”

“What's sugar?”

“Oh we got it about six hundred years ago. It's a crop, it makes things sweet – like honey.”

“Honey's, not a crop,” Arthur frowns - “Honestly Merlin, for a peasant you know nothing about agriculture.”

“Oh, and you're an expert I suppose? Look, come sit on the sofa before you hurt yourself – also you can't call people peasants any more.”

“Why not?”

“It's considered rude. Actually it was always rude, you were just an ass. _This – this_ is the sofa, here.”

“The big squashy chair thing?”

“Yeah, the big squashy chair thing! Sit on it, you'll like it.”

Arthur pokes it, beams when his finger goes down on it, and lowers himself into it gingerly -

“It's -” it feels like sinking into water – only drier and more solid - “It's soft!”

“Yeah. Really soft. Like your head.”

“Did you _really_ miss insulting me?”

“I missed -” Merlin sits beside him, stiff on the edge of the sofa, Arthur flailing to balance himself in what, Merlin realises, must feel like an almost difficult level of softness - “I missed everything.” He finds himself unable to look at Arthur, picks up the coke bottle where he'd left it on the floor and takes a swallow, just to avoid looking more easily.

“Tell me,” Arthur says, holding on to a cushion protectively; like a child, Merlin thinks, about to watch a scary movie - “Tell me everything.”

_Everything._

How does he begin to summarise a thousand and a half years? How does he explain all the changes in the world? The changes even in the size and shape of that world? The concept of universe? How does he explain without first explaining the evolution of language itself? The words he will need to tell the history of the ages? He has come to feel so old, so beyond the normality of human life, he has spent centuries learning to be apart from others, learning to be alone, to even live with the pain of it. He had tried at first, of course he had, to make connections, but after Gaius died and Gwen and Sir Percival, Leon and all the others and he still had not aged – not to look at him –. He sighs.

“There is _so much._ Do you want to ask?”

“I don't – tell me what you did. What happened after I – _died.”_ The last word comes out a tiny whisper.

“Okay.” He nods, nods again. Leans back into the sofa.

“First of all I suppose – magic. There was magic. When I came back – no, I have to go back further. I don't know how long I stayed there. On the side of the lake. I watched the boat until I could not see it any more, I suppose all the time I still thought – you'd come back in the instant, that I would turn around and you'd be standing there, grinning your stupid grin and yelling Surprise! But you didn't. I still waited. I suppose I was mostly ready to just swim after you, I couldn't turn away, couldn't just _go on._ I nearly walked into the lake. Even filled my pockets with the stones – I suppose the only thing that stopped me was Kilgarrah. He came back. He told me I was right in not setting you on fire -”

“ _Very_ comforting, thank you Merlin -”

“Shut up. Because – it meant I knew you weren't dead. Not forever. And that was enough. I asked him when you'd be back and he repeated me that crap about Albion's time of greatest need and I yelled at him, said what about my greatest need? What about all his two halves of a coin crap? How could one half live without the other? The moon could hardly turn when the sun had gone out, that's what I told him and he just told me to wait. To live. And he made it sound so easy, but I thought you'd got off lightly. Dying. In the end he took me back to Camelot, and when they saw me return without you well - they knew. Gwen knew. But she didn't ask. Not for weeks. Not for months, until I came out of my room. I couldn't speak to anyone, not even Gaius – except to swear at him for feeding me, keeping me alive. I thought Gwen would blame me, that they all would – but – well – you know them. Honourable. Good to a fault. In the end Gwen said she was just glad I'd been with you and I told her about your coming back and well – back then we both still thought it meant soon – like in the normal span of a human lifetime – Arthur – Arthur, are you still listening?”

Arthur's eyes have gone glassy, like blue stone under water, and he sits, hands folded, staring at nothing.

“Arthur!”

“Gwen,” he says eventually - “She's dead. And Gaius. _Everyone –_ Everyone Merlin – except you?”

“Yeah,” he says softly.

“The dogs too? The youngest – she was just a puppy -” Arthur stops breathing for a few seconds, the ability catching in his throat, suffocating under all the loss.

“Arthur -” Merlin says, reaching out a hand - “It's been centuries. They all lived a really long time. Gilly too. She was Gwen's favourite – stayed around for ages, she did; loved buttercups, always rolling in them and smelling of flowers, wouldn't have made a hunter – anyway - and Gwen – she was queen for so long, she was brilliant, honest and -” he has to stop because Arthur, nodding and listening, and trying to understand the parts of this that are good, suddenly just crumples like somebody scrunched him up and implodes into silent but wracking sobs, reaching past the cushion to Merlin and clinging to him, head bent into his lap and Merlin – Merlin has to simply stop, fasten down on his own grief and hold on to Arthur for what feels like hours of shaking.

“What if I tell you the rest tomorrow, eh?” he says, stroking Arthur's hair as he grows silent, kissing him almost too gently to notice on the top of his head. Arthur just nods -

“It's – a lot isn't it?” he smiles, weak as a winter dawn sunlight - “Everyone – all the things I still had to do – I wans't ready -” his face wobbles again, and Merlin holds him hard against his cracked and trembling chest.

“It's alright, it's okay -” he murmurs, though it might be a lie, honestly he doesn't know, but it's the only thing to say, the only kind thing, the only possible thing right now - “You're here now, there's so much we can pick up, so much still to do, and I'm here and – and I -” he does not want to start, to open up his heart yet as well as everything else, but he has to say this, just this one thing - “I have missed you so much. Do you want – to eat?”

“Yeah.” Arthur nods, sniffs, sits up a bit, wipes his eyes, pulls the cushion back into his lap; it's red, plush, the sofa covered in all colours of cushion and at least three different blankets, red and blue and green, wool and velvet and a rough, almost sack like hairy fabric that still manages to feel good. Arthur picks at threads, running his fingers through the textures. One day Merlin might tell him just how much that is in his flat had been put there in preparation for his return, gathered with what he might like in mind – one day. Merlin will have to realise this for himself first.

“Is food – still good?”

“Oh -” this time Merlin does grin - “Oh yeah. And you can get it delivered – I mean _anyone_ can – how do you feel about – about bread product with stuff on?”

“I think – I think I feel your descriptive talents could use work?” But Arthur gesticulates lazily anyway, giving Merlin silent permission to continue. Merlin decides to get up for a minute and go into the kitchen area so Arthur does not see him get his phone out and get on to Foodhub.

“So are you – are you nobility now?” Arthur wonders aloud when he gets back.

“Nah. Why?”

“Only you seem to – I dunno – have money? But then you also work in a shop, so – I'm -” he laughs self deprecatingly to himself because it seems like such an understatement. “I'm confused?”

“I mean – I _own_ the shop – that's kind of a different thing these days and – I'm not broke, I guess?”

“I didn't ask if you needed fixing, Merlin, I asked -”

“No it's – sorry, language, language has changed a lot? I mean yes, I have money, I do fine, over a thousand years will do that. Also Gaius left me everything he had, and then – well Gwen made a new position for me as court magician so -”

“I wish I'd been there.”

He looks at Arthur with large, shining eyes -

“I wish that too,”

He has to close his eyes, and closing them he has to cover the room, to fall at Arthur's feet before him on the floor, put his head on his knee.

“I'm sorry -” the first tears leak out of him, just escaping through the tiny hole he allows in his dam of them - “I am so sorry. I should have told you, I should have said so long before but but -”

“I know. I know you love me, Merlin,” when Merlin looks up, Arthur is looking at him in a way he only ever did when he was not looking before, and if he needed an answer it is there in his eyes.

“I love you too,” Arthur actually shrugs, and yes, Merlin realises, of course, it's so obvious saying it aloud is hardly even important - “I meant to tell you – right at the end – but it came out _thank you_ instead. I'm sorry, too.”

This time it is Arthur who strokes Merlin's hair and Merlin leaning into his hand, realising he is, after all on his knees like a servant, and he leans up just as Arthur leans down and their lips meet with a breathtaking clash in a kiss fifteen centuries in the waiting. When it's over Arthur leans back flushed, eyes beautifully dark -

“I forgot you could do magic.”

“Well _that's_ cheesy.”

“Oh shut up, I didn't mean – what you were just saying about court magician – do some magic, Merlin!”

“There's plenty of time for – ah!”

The doorbell rings and he runs off. When he comes back with the bags Arthur's eyes go wide and his nostrils flare at the smell of food.

“You did do magic!”

“No -” Merlin laughs - “This is just pizza delivery – I mean it is quite magic, I guess.”

“Oh my fuck,” Arthur announces as they uncover food and he eats through one thing after another, swearing delightedly all the way - “Oh my fuck, food turned amazing!”

“Right?” Merlin beams like he invented pizza himself. Then he beams some more to see Arthur go through the stages of buoyant, delighted, stuffing his face and then almost instantly starting to look a little droopy round the eyes. _I'm in love,_ he thinks, and then it hits him and he thinks it again just for the joy of it. _I am in love and I don't have to hide it, I don't have to hide anything, I am in love and I cannot forget that -_

Food-drunk and smiling, Arthur turns to him with all that sleepy gold in his eyes and asks him if he has a bed in this crazy new house.

“Oh.” Merlin takes a huge breath and feels the dam on those feelings swell and loosen - “Oh yes.”

__x__


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

Looking down from a castle, looking down from a house – there was so much difference Arthur had never realised. The rooftops seem so much closer from here, the rooms he stands in are so much smaller; as though the world, for all its expansion over the centuries, has actually shrunk. Trying to take in all this new knowledge of a world that is bigger than he has ever stopped to think about is too much – so he looks instead across the rooftops, and as far as the view will let him – down into the street.

It is a fairly narrow street, an almost normal Camelot street, heading down between two rows of houses, most of them with signs above the doors announcing names and wares. This much is alright. There is a large building that opens out between two of them a little way down that looks older, more normal, more ornate, that Merlin had called the _Church –_ not that this was helpful. He sighs, loudly, looks down at his hand resting on the window, looks at it in wonder and curiosity. The paint on the sill is bright blue in the centre, faded almost to sky blue at the edges and peeling and dry in the corners; he picks at the flaking paint and flicks it onto the floor.

Merlin, coming out from the bathroom, stops to watch Arthur watch the world, and catches himself for just a moment between asking if he is alright and asking if he would mind _not_ picking the last of the old paint off of the windowsill, and that is _his floor,_ if he wouldn't mind so very much – he sighs, a little less loudly, and shakes his head. He supposes he can hardly start expecting him to understand and respect other people's places and things and maybe realise that he isn't a prince any more who can just do what he liked with other people's – he stops. Once, he could have lectured him much more easily; once he could have been casually rude even, tried to take him down just a little from the vantage point of lofty arrogance he can see even now in Arthur's eyes, but -

But there is a little frown line, knitted tight between those eyes now, one that has not relaxed since he saw him first – and that already feels like a lifetime ago, as though his life has only started again since Arthur woke up. Maybe it has. God, he _had_ tried to be someone without him, he had tried to consider himself alive Without Arthur, to live and breathe and move and talk Without Arthur – he had never mastered it, not in a thousand years and more. In truth, his life these past centuries has been as centred around him as it had when they were both alive – walking up the Tor twice every day, looking out for him on every journey, talking to him in the spot where he died every day, swinging wildly between the beliefs that Arthur could and could not hear him. Every item of news, every crisis the world had faced over the past millennia had got him thinking _surely this one – this time it must be Our Time Of Greatest Need._ If he had missed him less perhaps he could have berated him more. Instead he hears himself ask Arthur if he is alright.

“What?” Arthur turns his head, forces a smile. He always does that, always had. Made himself smile for the happiness and reassurance of others. Merlin's heart isn't sure it can take all these hoof kicks. He wonders how someone could be so simultaneously selfish and selfless, so superior and so giving. But that was Arthur. It had been easier to love so hard when the idiot annoyed him more.

“I said are you alright – you look - I dunno – thoughtful?”

“It _does_ happen, Merlin.” Arthur frowns and looks back at his hands. He supposes he had been thinking it was strange how clean they looked, as though he should have dirt beneath the nails from clawing his way back to life, as though his skin should look discoloured, older, greying from being dead. He wonders how to say this.

“I just -” he starts, stops, starts again - “I know you want to know where I was, what it was like; I know you want to ask, Merlin, don't pretend otherwise – I would. If someone had died and came back, I'd want to know, but I don't know what I can tell you – it just felt like waking up. I remember pain. I remember you, I remember you asking me to stay, and I tried, I swear I really did - but it was like – like being the most tired I ever felt, and I had to just sleep – that was what it was like, like I fell asleep, and then – this morning I woke up – I suppose it felt like it had been a long sleep, but beyond that -” he sighs. “I really wish I could tell you more. I know how much you have to tell me. But – I suppose I sort of felt like I dreamed? Bits of them keep coming back to me, so many dreams, yeah. Yeah, I guess it was a _really_ long sleep.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“I dunno. Weird ones. Boring ones. Things that had happened. Mostly I dreamed I sat on that hill and looked out. Sometimes I'd fly across the land, see it change in ways that made no sense. Often you'd sit with me, talk to me -”

“I did.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Every day. I walked up the Tor and sat looking out – and I'd talk to you as though you were there, tell you everything that was happening in the world.”

“Really? You really did that? God, you must have looked a right nutter.”

“Yeah,” Merlin snorts, almost a laugh. “Yeah, suppose I did. Sometimes I got mad and didn't come and see you – that was how I thought of it – coming to see you. Sometimes I got mad and _did_ _-_ I'd shout at you for leaving me, swear and curse at you for not being there, storm back down the hill swearing I'd never come that way again – then go back up an hour later to apologise. Yeah. They must have thought I was the village loony.” He shrugs - “Nothing new there.”

“Glad you said it.”

“And sometimes I cried at you. Sometimes I just – talked -” Merlin frowns - “Can we continue this in bed? And – with you with clothes on?”

“Oh -” Arthur looks down at himself. It hadn't really occurred to him; honestly the _shower_ as Merlin so named it had been such a shock he is still recovering. _Taps._ He can hardly lie, they were brilliant! It had been some time before he could stop turning them on and off, not to mention repeatedly flushing the _toilet_ until Merlin came and told him he would break the plumbing. So many new words it was like another language.

“Okay. But your clothes won't fit me.”

“Arthur, it's been a thousand years, you think I wasn't prepared –? Come on -”

He resists the urge to lead Arthur by the hand again, trusting that he will follow him into the bedroom – which is barely bigger than the bed it contains and the wardrobe at the foot of it.

“Here -” he takes out a set of pyjamas, hurriedly pulls the labels off, tosses them to Arthur.

“Soft -” Arthur murmurs, stroking the fabric - “What are they?”

“Pyjamas. They're for sleeping in. Try them. I think they'll be your size.”

Arthur just stands there, holding the folded clothes helplessly, expression confused and slightly vacant.

“Here.” Merlin shakes his head, realising, and sighs. He takes the clothes from Arthur, puts them down on the bed, picks up the top and shakes it out. All the times he has mocked him for not being able to dress himself - _crown prince of a kingdom and you need someone to do this for you._ All the times that Arthur has pointed out it wasn't that he _couldn't,_ it was a matter of pride in having someone to do it for him – _even someone as incompetent as you, Merlin._

“Arms,” Merlin sighs, and shakes his head, Arthur holding them out obediently. _All the orders you give and you have me do this for you like a baby (shut up Merlin)._

“You know I'm not your manservant anymore,” he says lightly as he passes the neckline around Arthur's shoulders, remembering the movements like the steps of a dance, something welling up inside him at the old familiar pattern of it.

“I'm sorry – I could -” Arthur looks a little crestfallen, frown line deepening. Merlin just half imagines him trying to fumble his way though the strange and unfamiliar fastenings, and swallows hard, blinking angrily to keep his eyes clear – and shakes his head fiercely. He does not allow himself to look up from fastening Arthur's buttons until he has finished. When he does, his face is so close to Arthur's in the tiny bedroom that the tension of proximity tugs at his chest like it might explode it. But Arthur's eyes are bright and shining with the not quite tears of his own tension and his own are smarting so hard he had to look away again.

“Merlin -” Arthur says so softly it did not help, and an impulsive hand reaches for Merlin's face, keeping him from escape. “Don't cry. I'm sorry. I really did try to stay for you.”

“I know.” Merlin shakes his head angrily, dislodging Arthur's hand, but it is a small price to pay for managing not to cry on him. He can see Arthur's chin crumpling and is not sure he could bear more tears just now. He forces his own back, dragging them down to his feet with a huge swallow, clamming down for the dozenth time. _For Arthur –_ he reminds himself, and it is enough. It was always enough.

“Sit down,” he manages to say in a voice that only just shakes. Arthur does.

“Leg.” He shakes the pyjamas out, and bunches them over the politely offered foot. He resists the urge to kiss that foot. It might not have been the first time, although it had more often been the act of disrobing Arthur that was turned into foreplay, the opposite act being somewhat contrary to requirements. All the same he suddenly remembers a dozen and more times when helping him to dress had contained more caresses than it ought, more kisses than were useful, Arthur more than once proving how quickly he _could_ take his own clothes off when inspired. He has to stop, he chides himself; wanting Arthur now could not possibly prove productive. He is still having trouble gauging Arthur's mental state – hell, he is hardly sure of his own just yet.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, dressed and looking around the room - “This is _your_ bed.”

“Yes? Um – well done?”

“Wally. I mean. Can I – I never slept in your bed before.”

“Because it was hardly wide enough for one, and you would have fallen right out with your great stupid limbs.”

“Merlin, I'm trying to ask you if it's alright, please try not to be a prat.”

“Right, sorry. Yes. Of course. Of course.”

“Alright then.” Arthur nods, grins and bound into the bed, occupying it in an instant.

“Okay, but you can move up and let me in.”

“Sorry Merlin -” Arthur wriggles comfortable, stretching - “My limbs are just too great and stupid. God, this is soft, I like it!”

“You can like it on your side. Budge.”

But Arthur does not budge, and Merlin grins to recognise the challenge in his smiling eyes, burrowing into bed hard behind him and wrestling Arthur bodily into occupying at least only two thirds of the bed. After the fight, they flop where they land, messily, as so many times before, a pile of limbs and Arthur's head on his shoulder, an arm thrown lazily around Merlin's middle like it isn't even something that matters. But it matters. They had rarely been tender, even when sharing a bed; when they had made love it was by accident, avoiding acknowledgement afterwards, struggling to make eye contact, only ever cuddling when they could at least pretend one or both of them were asleep. It strikes Merlin for the first time what a ridiculous dance it had all been.

“Can I -” he reaches a little, like Arthur is a small forest creature that might take flight and scatter - “Can I hold you?”

He watches Arthur struggle for a short and pithy reply that would make light of his acquiescence easily enough. He watches him fail and simply rearranges his own limbs to let Arthur burrow in, placing Merlin's arm around his shoulders himself. Of course.

“So go on,” Merlin says - “Tell me what I told you in your dreams.”

“I don't think I need to – sounds like you were there. Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“That big glowing ball thing – when I was in the cave with the flowers and the spiders – was that you?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I knew you loved me – by the time I died – but I didn't know it had been for that long. I'm sorry.”

Merlin shrugs awkwardly -

“You're easy to love -” he frowns - “And appalling, yeah, you know what, apology accepted.”

“You're an ass, Merlin. Why do you have a double bed, anyway? You didn't have – shit, you don't have -” Arthur pulls back a little, as horror at the thought dawns on him.

“What?” Merlin doesn't catch on.

“Like a boyfriend? Girlfriend? You've not been – _married,_ have you?”

Merlin wants to laugh at the question, though he could not have said if it was from amusement or sadness.

“No.”

“No?” Arthur snuggles back in.

“Never. It was always you. Only ever you.”

“You – could have,” the awkward pause in the middle makes it more than clear that this is a lie - “I wouldn't have minded.”

“Yes you would.” Merlins chest heaves – he can't lie, not any more, he realised that as soon as he saw Arthur again this time – there can never be room for lies between them again - “But I didn't. I couldn't. Okay?” He curls his fingers round Arthur's shoulder tightly, possessive and needy all at once.

“I really _wouldn't_ have minded – a thousand years – christ, Merlin that's – I mean, that's a long time.”

“I _know,”_ Merlin wishes Arthur would shut up about this, wishes it too hard to actually tell him to shut up about it. “Look -” he feels his jaw tense, grits his teeth - “I was taken, alright?” This time he does add a - “Shut up. My heart – it is – and only ever has been – yours. Alright. No amount of time can change that. Death can't change that. Nothing.”

“So I'm stuck with you, then?”

“You really are. Go to sleep, your Highness.”

“Mmm, can't, not sleepy.”

“- and that's a cue for you falling straight off – Arthur?”

q“Mmm?” Arthur has rolled over, closed his eyes. Merlin shifts behind him, half over him, watching him, protective.

“You will wake up, won't you?” He whispers it, voice the youngest he thought he might ever have heard it.

“Bright and early,” Arthur yawns - “Just bring me a good _Up and at 'em_ and my breakfast, alright?”

“You're a nightmare.”

“Pleasant dreams.”

Merlin shakes his head, sighing, a million feelings fireworking in his chest.

Arthur sleeps. Merlin doesn't.

__x__

**So I finally had an epiphany two days ago and worked out where this fic is going - or at least how it's going to end - which doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be _very_ plotty but does mean I'm likely to finish it! Woohoo! **


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

Waking up is a slow process, and for Arthur it has always been an exceptionally arduous one. Of course he _can_ be instantly on his feet and alert, but honestly, if he is not under any immediate attack he really does not force himself to be. It is instead the first faint drop of consciousness, the first early sunbeam to fall on the floor, a pinprick and then another, then groaning and digging down full-bodied into a bed that is always at its most comfortable at precisely this point, the blankets and cushions holding on to the sleeper like a clingy lover.

Then of course, there's his clingy lover. Merlin is awake, has been for the last hour. Never having been able to get used to a great deal of sleep as Arthur's servant he never has really got into the habit of it. Usually he would be up and out, making coffee and on the move, but this morning there is no chance of his leaving Arthur alone for five minutes. He knows he can't get into the habit of never leaving him, but he's not sure how he could ever feel comfortable doing so again. He belongs at his side, and while perhaps that cannot mean literally at every second, it's been years. Years of belonging at the side of someone who wasn't there. Now that he is here, real and exquisitely solid beside him there is not even the faintest chance of him getting up and making coffee. Arthur stirs and he wants to sob for relief. In the dreams and the millions of mornings that began like this, the thought of Arthur in his arms never moved; waking to feel him there was an illusion always dashed into painful memory of his absence by becoming fully awake.

This morning it is Arthur who feels the resurfacing of consciousness the most keenly. Strange, he thinks, that he did not feel this yesterday morning. Yesterday morning was probably the only time in his life that he woke up instantly, with a crisp clean feeling in his head and a gradual stirring into wakefulness that, while bewildering beyond measure, was somehow nowhere near as discombobulating as it feels this morning. The first thought, that of consciousness itself. The second that of _being._ The third thought – though at these early stages of waking, they are not so much thoughts as dots of awareness – and the third is awareness of Merlin. His own existence first, of course, because he lives in his own skin; and the second that of the person close to him. Yes, he remembers this, this is how waking always goes. After that, awareness does begin to take the shape of thoughts, and it rushes in on him hard and loud in his head – and catastrophic. He takes a breath so huge it is almost a gasp, almost a scream – the memory assailing him that everyone else is dead – knocking him so that it feels like falling. It _does_ feel like falling. To realise that people you expected to be there, whose existence you simply assumed – that they're not there and never will be again. That there are threads of conversations, threads of interaction that will always be left trailing now. He does not cry for Gwen this time, but he does turn and hold on to Merlin tightly before the ability to speak comes back. He shakes off the bugs of grief and groans to be awake. Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Morning,” Arthur sys, dragging the word out.

“Morning,” Merlin replies, face close and beaming for the precious simplicity of this. Just this. He never needed anything else.

“So what happens now?” Arthur asks.

“We live.”

Merlin melts at the innocence in Arthur's eyes, the bright sky blue of them, and he kisses him for a long, warm time with roving hands, knowing nothing but the two of them, sleep warm and crushed together in a nest as for two small creatures and this is pleasure and this is everything until eventually somebody says “I gotta pee,” and the other one groans because it is not how love is ever written but it is how it is, and you hide under the covers for a little bit longer because once up in the morning you're up and you cannot come back to this bliss for another full day, but in the end you really _do_ need to piss and they flail limbs and throw off the covers and shout at each other in the bathroom, and honestly, Merlin thinks it feels like being old married might, and he wraps Arthur up in a dressing gown and leads him to the breakfast table and wants to keep him safe forever and probably can't and they actually _could_ marry now; he wonders what that means, what they are now.

“What's this?” Arthur smells his cup of coffee suspiciously.

“It's coffee. It's good. Wakes you up.”

“I _am_ awake.”

“Like a tonic. Clears the head. It's good with milk and sugar.”

Arthur sips it tentatively.

“I don't like it.”

Merlin sighs and makes him a cup of tea.

“I like it,” Arthur pronounces to his great relief, watching Merlin make breakfast with all the bright curiosity of a sharp eyed bird.

“When did you learn how to cook?”

“One thousand five hundred years, you think I wouldn't?”

“Huh. I suppose that makes you a lot older than me now. Do you think – I'll age?”

“Dunno. Maybe I will now. I don't know why I didn't, but I suppose I guess – I think I was maybe on pause – until my destiny returned. That's what it feels like.”

“And that's me isn't it? Your destiny? So – what are we? Why did I come back? Is there something I need to be doing?”

“Whoooee -” Merlin whistles - “Eat your breakfast. Don't get used to it. You're gonna have to start learning how to do _things.”_

“I can do _things.”_

“Yes, but not dress or make food or look after yourself. You're not a king here, remember, nobody will know you and you _can't_ just go around saying you're Prince Arthur cause they'll think you're a nutter. Trust me, there's a bloke who tries.”

“What? He pretends to be me? I'll fight him.”

“He's not the only one, but I guess the most famous? Cropped up a few years ago, legally changed his name to Arthur Pendragon. Quite a few people actually believed him too.”

“Does he even look like me?”

“Nah. Big beardy bloke. Not even pretty.”

“So – who _am_ I?”

“Yeah, I thought about that. See legally, you probably shouldn't even exist, but I fixed it. With magic. Got you ID, passport, bank account. You even have money cause I started you an account – oof - centuries ago? Anyone asks, it was handed down to you. Just like people round here think I'm the grandson of someone who lived here fifty years ago and so on going back centuries – had to make myself look ageing on a sort of eighty year cycle. Good thing you got me just now or you'd have to put up with old man Emrys for another few years.”

“Thank god then. So – I have money and I don't have to work? I have to do something though – I mean, _Albion's time of greatest need,_ yes? What's wrong in the country and how do I fix it?”

“So yeah -” Merlin nods thinking fast, like he has not stopped thinking since yesterday - “It _is_ a crap time. Wars. Disease. Someone called Donald Trump. Oh and there's currently a a – like a plague – everywhere? So we all have to wear these -”

He tosses Arthur a face mask. Arthur turns it in his hands and starts to put it on.

“Not in the house. Just any time we go out.”

“Plague,” Arthur echoes.

“Sort of. It's called a pandemic?”

“People are dying?”

“Yeah. It's pretty bad. And then there's America – that's another country -”

“-and it's ruled by some kind of tyrant?”

“I mean, eh – essentially? That's Trump. But there's a bit of an arse in charge over here as well, not much better. There's bad folks in charge all over right now.”

“So I should – fight them? If I could kill this Trump and take over his country?”

“Um -” Merlin scratches his head - “Just a sec. Stick the plates in the sink?”

“Since when did you give me orders?”

“Pretty much always. Hang on.”

Merlin goes to the living room, comes back and puts his laptop on the kitchen table which – to his credit – Arthur has cleared of all plates. He then watches in fascination as Merlin powers up the computer.

“Magic?”

“Uhuh – computers – I'll explain later – well you'll see – so I think the thing is – the world's a lot bigger than you know it? See Albion – well we sort of call that England now – but really looking at it – okay -” he pulls a map of England up on the screen - “Really you weren't even King of all of that – just this bit in the south west – Cornwall mainly and surrounding counties. Where we are now is in Somerset – that's what it's called now and see -” he gets up a three dimensional rendition of a globe - “This is England. It's really quite tiny, just a corner of the world – the whole world - he makes the globe turn. Arthur peers at it in astonishment.

“The world is – a ball?”

“In space, yeah.”

“In – a space?”

“Not _a_ space. Space space – it's – right okay -” he gets up another page - “So this is the sun and this is our solar system -”

Over the next few hours Merlin teaches Arthur the basics of the world as a planet and the planet in space. He has to frequently persuade Arthur not to go back to bed and hide and can see him on occasion shivering on the verge of hysteria at his mind expanding to take in the new scale of existence. He wonders if he could even have coped so well with learning it all so fast. By the end of the morning he thinks Arthur understands enough not to be terrified of falling right off the ball in space or that the ball itself will roll loose and also that he understands England in relation to America and all other major continents and countries. He is still working on telling him why he cannot just g over to America and challenge Trump to a duel when he realises what time it is.

“Okay, so I said we'd go out? Best way to get to know the world is to see it, but yeah, I do appreciate it's terrifying so we'll just go to Chalice Wells and back, yeah?”

“Alright.” Arthur rubs his face with his palms hard - “Okay? Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have my – what did you call them? ID? What's my name now?”

“Still Arthur Pendragon. I nearly gave you my surname, because you know _Pendragon,_ but I thought it might be a little – presumptious?”

“No lie. What _is_ your surname Merlin?”

“Er – Wilde now, that's pretty much an approximation of what it always was.”  
  


“I don't think you ever told me? Merlin, I don't think I ever _knew_ your surname?”

“Well that's because you're a self absorbed prat who doesn't give two hoots about the people around him. Come _on,_ your highness, we can't sit in doors all day.”

“See you're rude and insubordinate but then call me your _highness_ anyway. What do I do with you Merlin?”

“Can't be insubordinate if you're not my superior any more. 'Sides I always _was_ rude to you.”

“Fact.”

Arthur grumbles the entire way through getting dressed and yet, Merlin cannot help but notice that he _does_ get dressed, even grunts appreciatively at the wardrobe Merlin already had ready for him and that none of his grumbles are about the fact that Merlin does not dress him. He _does_ however, turn to Merlin looking a little bit proud when he finishes getting dressed and asks him how he looks with all the natural cockiness of someone who knows he looks good. When they get downstairs there is a girl behind the counter who stares at them and looks at Merlin with a question in her eyes. So does Arthur.

“Arthur this is Elisef, Ellie this is Arthur, Ellie runs the shop for me when I'm not in, Arthur's going to be living here now and helping out in the shop -”

“I most certainly am _not_ helping out in a - _”_ Arthur splutters in utter affront before Merlin elbows him hard in the ribs - “I mean – uh – maybe. No offence,” he mutters.

“He's from another time and place, aren't you, your highness?” Elisef's epression of utter confusion changes into one of positively pixie like delight.

“Ohhhhh,” she says and then shuts up fast, though she looks as though she would like to start dancing on the spot.

“We're going out for a few hours, then you can maybe show Arthur what we do here?”

“You – go yes!” She cannot stop grinning, and something in her exuberance reminds Arthur ever so slightly of Gwen - “Take your time really, I'll be fine – oh and Merlin, Betty from Victoria Terrace was in this morning, she said that potion you gave her for her knees worked like magic - she can hardly understand it. Also that Good Luck Spell- the new one- really works! It's amazing!”

“Amazing,” Merlin echoes, deadpan but with a smile flickering in the corner of his mouth that Arthur cannot take his eyes from. He pauses at the front door, checking his pockets for a face mask and that plastic rectangular card Merlin gave him.

“Merlin!” Elisef calls him back and he leaves Arthur for a second by the door - “I am _soooo_ happy for you!” Arthur hears her say, and she throws her arms around his neck - “Like _finally!”_

“ _Come on,”_ Merlin half pushes him out the door, a little flustered - “Mask on?”

“Is it right?”

“It's – upside down,” Merlin sighs, fixes it for him. Finally they get out into the street and another sparkling sunny day, warm as the baking they can smell a few doors down.

“What was she so excited about?” Arthur asks as they stand in the queue outside the bakery, looking in at the cake like a child in a sweet shop; they look golden and chunky and gorgeous.

“Oh, she's been on at me to get a boyfriend ever since she started. She's just happy for me I guess.” Merlin looks down at his feet.

“ _Boyfriend?_ What's that?”

“It's like – uh – when you're courting? Only nowadays you can be already living together, even you know – just about everything.”

“Everything?”

“ _You_ know -”

“Like – sex everything?”

“Oh great, just a little louder there, I don't think they heard you on Mars.”

“Which we _do_ do.”

“What?”

“Sex. Right? We can still?”

“Yes! Yes I knew that, and you know that, but I don't think old Mr Davis in _The Goddess and the Green Man_ needed to know that!”

“Oh. Right. Subtlety.”

“See. You do know the word.”

“So – _are_ we _boyfriends?”_

“Do you _want_ to be?” It takes all of Merlin's self restraint and the very last grain of his chill to sound easy about it but -

“Yes,” Arthur says so quickly he does not have to worry for long - “Yes of course. If I had known the word I'd say I always _did_ want that. I mean, weren't we already?”

_Weren't we already –_ one thousand five hundred years of wondering, amongst everything else, exactly what they _had_ ever been to each other – words like _everything_ and _destiny_ aside – and apparently it had been obvious to Arthur all along.

Thank God, he thought, that the twenty first century had words for things. Then it was his turn to go into the bakery and he thought about cake instead.

__x__

**So okay, just had a thought - I know where this is going to go but I haven't got the whole route planned out yet so if anyone has any ideas/ requests about stuff you'd like to see them do or things Arthur should hear about regarding history/ the 21st century/ anything and/ or conversations that need to be had throw them my way and I'll maybe get them in? If not I'll just roll along and see where we go :-)**


	5. Chapter 5

5.

It's called an Apple Danish, Merlin says, and it is ridiculously delicious, sticky and sweet and as big as his head. Arthur hardly says a word until it was completely devoured, and he sighs contentedly, licking his fingers in the sunshine on the grass, on a slope leading down to the last in a series of small carved pools. Merlin tries very hard not to watch him, but he could hardly help it.

“So what's this one?” Arthur pulls something very powdery out of the cake bag and waves it around a little, scattering sugar everywhere.

“That's a jam doughnut. I can almost guarantee you're going to love it. Did you get anything that wasn't a cake?”

“Well there were so many to choose from – as it was I had to narrow it down to these three.”

“You're missing something. The sandwiches are brilliant. Did you know according to history the sandwich wasn't invented until the eighteenth century?”

“That's the same time they're supposed to have invented knights?”

“A few centuries after - but, as with the knights, we had sandwiches all the time. Or I did. Anyway Gaius used to shove stuff in bread at me when I was obviously not going to have a chance to sit down and eat – like always – maybe it's just because we never named it we don't get to be credited with inventing the sandwich -” he shrugs - “Anyway.”

“And we're from – you said the sixth century?”

“Pretty much. History still seems to be a little hazy around that time.”

“You're telling me. This place is what again?”

“Supposed to be the last resting place of the Holy Grail. I told you the story already.”

“I'm supposed to have gone off the rails because Gwen cheated on me with Lancelot – and so I – had a breakdown – and decided I needed some Holy relic to fix the kingdom?”

“I mean it differs between versions, but yeah. Like sometimes the Grail quest is great and glorious, sometimes you – well I mean the King Arthur character in the story goes really crap and the whole kingdom goes to pot. You should see the old eighties _Excalibur._ Phew. Also I'm a bloody nutter in that one.”

“That's a book? There are a whole bunch of books about this?”

“That one's a film. But yeah. Sure loads of books, loads of films, some with bits of true stuff and a lot with an awful lot of crap – like I'm almost always an old man. I mean really old? Big beard. Bit weird -”

“I mean sometimes you did do that.”

“I know but still – I could have been pretty once or twice.”

“I thought you said there was already too much crap in these stories.”

“Ha _ha.”_

“It – feels good though, this place? Grail or no Grail – it's very pretty? Feels – still here – but the water tastes icky.”

“That is healing magic water, I'll have you know.”

“Icky. Tastes like blood.”

“That's the copper.”

“And it's _brown.”_

“Also the copper. Shall we walk again?”

They get up, brush grass from their clothes, leave the crumbs and sugar to the ants and loop back up the path that leads to the main central pond, which proclaims itself _King Arthur's,_ a rectangular depression of water beneath the trees, shadowy and calm and velvety green in the light.

“Can I get in?”

“Normally. Only not right now because corona. Sometimes people lie themselves all the way in. Healing, like I said.”

“How is it healing to freeze your bits off?”

“It's about the belief in it.”

“Like magic?”

“I guess.”

“Speaking of magic, Merlin -”

“Go on.”

“Your potions, and those sort of spell things you sell – they _really work,_ do they?” Arthur raises an eyebrow just mildly accusingly, a faintly amused challenge.

“Shut up. Yes alright. They do.”

“You're using magic? Actually selling it to – to anyone?”

“Yes. Just a little. Only so much as means they don't really notice – not that it's real magic, I mean; this is Glastonbury, best place in the world to get away with it. People will believe anything around here and anyone they tell about it will just roll their eyes and call them hippies. Actually it's a bit frustrating.”

“How?”

“Well I've had to temper it – make sure the potions aren't _too_ miraculous, you know? The spells – sometimes they have to not work so I dont't attract too much attention. Just like always. But then, I'm good at that. Doing magic right under people's noses, and having them just be glad that what they hoped would happen happens. It's – what I do, right?”

“Hmm.”

Arthur frowns, lost in thought, and Merlin looks away, touches the branches of a tree tied with all different colours of ribbon, overhanging a well with black iron curls across the lid. Arthur sits on the cool stone of the wall for a while with the bushes behind him, breathing deep in the still and mossy dark of the place, shadowed, almost cave-like even in the bright September sunlight.

“Merlin – how many times have you saved my life?”

“So many.” Merlin struggles to look at him - “I lost count. Sorry.”

“See -” Arthur sighs, loudly - “See, I want to be mad at you. Because yes, you were using magic all that time, weren't you? It must have been such an effort to keep that from me, I mean – we shared _everything –_ didn't we? I thought – I thought you were the only person who didn't lie to me, the person I really – ugh – got naked with – I mean inside and out? Weren't you? Weren't we?”

He waves the question away as rhetorical -

“That's what I thought. See, I want to be asking you how you expect me to trust you when you're clearly so good at lying to me -” Merlin opens his mouth to protest, Arthur waves him down again - “But instead I just keep thinking you must have been so mad at _me._ I mean – all the time – to think you had to go to all that effort and – and – shut up, but it hurts that you didn't but I also get it, and I also can't stop thinking about everything you did that I didn't know you did for me, that you didn't take credit for or – or seek to burden me with and I want to – to _thank_ you I suppose, and also be hurt and be mad with you? I wouldn't have had you killed, I really hope you know that.”

Merlin looks across the well to see Arthur's eyes glittering in the dapples of light with confused tears and feels like a monster for putting them there.

“Yeah.” he looks down guiltily - “I get that. I'd get it if you – if you couldn't trust me. If you wanted to be elsewhere. You don't have to stay with me – I mean – once you work out how to – how to live in this world.”

“You think I was saying I didn't – no. Merlin -” Arthur looks back at him distraught - “Even if I _could_ survive this world without you – I mean practically speaking – do you really think that's what I'd want? It doesn't matter if I'm mad, if I'm questioning, it wouldn't matter if I was furious with you and I'm _not –_ I can't be _elsewhere._ There's something about you, Merlin, remember? Something – and shut up, because you know I don't say these things well – something that keeps me from ever wanting to be too far away from you – please don't make me spell it out.”

“I wouldn't strain your brain that hard -” Merlin sniffs, wiping at his face with a sleeve angrily.

“Please -” he hates seeing this Arthur, the needy vulnerable one that comes to him in slivers - “Don't make me be elsewhere? You don't want me to be – do you?”

“No,” Merlin shakes his head, his chest feeling too full, overwhelmed - “God no. You were gone. You were gone for so long -” he tries to say more, to tell how much it hurt, how slowly the minutes passed, the hours and days and terrible years. He can't. He cannot say how his heart died and fluttered back over and over again in cycles of hope and despair, cannot even begin to word the level of how much he had missed him, how whatever thread connected them – the connection indeed that Arthur had just tried and failed to describe – how the severing of that thread had felt like a cut to his own intestines – left torn and reaching for a continuation that was no longer there. It had felt like his insides had been pulled from him and were constantly pulling him like ribbons leading towards Arthur in another world, or in death if there was a difference. He wants to say all of this, wants to be able to voice fervently enough how little he would ever like for Arthur to be gone again. How little the lies and the difficulties between them could possibly matter in the face of all of that need and terrible missing. He wants to say so much, but words fail and he does not know who moves first, only that they are in each other's arms, thank god, and clinging for dear life, crushing each other together as though they could coil around and inside of one another's ribs, and his eyes are squeezed tight but the tears leak out anyway, and so much shuddering with those sobs that the world should move with it. But this is a still place, just about one of the only still places, here they can break apart and the bits will come back together on their own and they are clinging, clinging tight against the tide of too many tears and the few visitors who walk past this spot move quickly on so as not to disturb them. Even the insects dare not trouble their togetherness with noise.

“When you're close to me -” Arthur says, not looking at Merlin, but holding his hand as they move on through the narrow paths between the trees - “It feels like something broken in my chest touches something in you and the broken thing is fixed. I'm saying this wrong again.”

“No,” Merlin says - “No you're not.”

Because he feels it, on leaving the Holy Well, that magic has happened in that sacred space, that in clinging together so tightly they have bound themselves in threads that will never be severed again, threads in all the colours of the ribbons on those trees. He can feel his magic rising in him unbidden, less controlled than it has been in a very long time.

“Your eyes -” Arthur says - “Are kind of golden, did you know? Must be the sunlight.” He stops at the far end of a tunnel of fine trees, branches weaving in a canopy overhead, opening out onto a sunny green slope – truly this garden in the middle of a town feels bigger on the inside.

“It's not sunlight -” Merlin grins. “It's magic. It does that. Watch -” he looks up at the latticework of branches just behind them, and whispers something that tingles through Arthur, makes him feel as though he has roots himself, and the branches part and burst into flower and the sun shines down in a cascade onto the path, and the flower petals spread and bloom and fall until the arbour is shivering with blossoms, throwing their petals all over the path. Arthur looks back at Merlin just in time to see the gold go out of his eyes.

“Magic -” he whispers, wide eyed himself and almost reverant - “It's beautiful. My father always said it couldn't be.”

“I think we can safely say your father lied about a lot of things.”

“Yes. I'm starting to see that.”

They sit back on the grass in this new spot and kiss and this time passers by smile when they see them and move discreetly away. Merlin feels some kind of pain unlocking in him this time and Arthur tastes like sugar and apples and he never in a thousand years and more even dreamed a moment so lovely.

“Show me -” Arthur lies back upon the ground, feeling the earth hum beneath his back, folding his arms behind his head, looking up at the sky - “Show me more magic.”

Merlin turns his head, raises an eyebrow – _are you sure?_ Arthur stretches out one arm lazily then reaches for Merlin's hand – _absolutely._ Merlin squeezes the hand in his and with his other hand reaches a finger to draw patterns on the sky.

__x__

**Quote from my beta today “I am so hear for reading more about Arthur eating an apple danish as big as his head”. Look if you've ever been to _Burns the Bread_ in Glastonbury you'll know descriptions of their cakes cannot be too many or too effusive. Uff, I wish I lived there. In other news my beta and other half proposed to me right in that spot where Melrin shows Arthur the magic. True story. :-) …..I love Glastonbury did yous knoooooo :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

“I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something.”

“You are doing something. It's actually fascinating.”

“Oh ha ha. I do things Merlin. I always have done, only you were too up your own arse to notice.”

“ _I? I_ was up my own arse?”

“Excuse us for a moment.”

Arthur leaves Ellie by the counter, grinning and shaking her head at them both, and stands beside Merlin at the prep bench at back of the shop, watching his hands as they move almost in a blur; cutting herbs up so fine the act looks like magic in its own right.

“You do know I _was_ the king? King of Camelot? Ring any bells. I don't just sit around on my arse like _someone_ I could name.”

“If you don't mind, I don't think I sat down once in the twelve years that we had.”

“That's a lie, and you know it. Besides, I'm sure you made up for it this past millennia. Besides – I am _helping_ in a _shop_ in case you didn't notice.”

“Oh no, I did. I really did. Actually you seem to be taking to it pretty well, could make a shop boy of you yet.”

“You take that back.”

“Are you insulting Ellie? She's a shop girl.”

“She's a student. She told me. At a _university.”_ Arthur pronounces the strange word as though he is proud of it, and Merlin cannot help a little smile - “Doing media studies and game design – Merlin?” He whispers the last bit - “What _are_ media studies and game design? I didn't want her to think I was thick.”

“It's like – studying film and TV and – and making computer games- kind of – ish? That's the reeeaaally simple answer.”

“TV? Film? Com-pu-ter games?”

Merlin laughs, not unkindly.

“I'll show you this evening.”

“Ellie said she got her name from something called _Skyrim –_ is that a computer game?”

“Yeah. You'll love it.”

“So anyone can just change their name?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Huh. And their gender?”

“Oh, she already talked about that with you?”

“A bit. I didn't get all of it.”

“Yeah. I mean not everyone sees it as _changing_ as such, more like – like being who you're meant to be rather than what someone else says you are?”

“Huh. I don't know if I could do that.”

“What? Be a girl?”

“No you wally, be myself. I suppose I never really thought about it. I don't know that I had a choice. Even if I did, I don't know if I could have. I think maybe Ellie's just – a lot braver than I am?”

“You're brave.”

“Am I? How do you know? I just mostly did what I was told.”

“Yeah, but not when it was wrong? I guess it's easier to change your family when you're not born a Prince. God knows Prince Harry's had trouble enough.”

“A real prince? Can I meet him?”

“No, he's moved to Canada and anyway – no! And you can't duel Donald Trump. Or JK Rowling. Though I can't lie I've been tempted to do some serious magic there.”

“I don't know who that is. Ugh – I have to do _something,_ though? It's _not_ that I don't like learning shop work. Actually it's surprisingly – pleasant. But I thought I was back for a reason? To do something important? I don't know what I am without a cause to fight.”

“You're you, aren't you? Arthur you've only been back half a day, why not just be yourself for once – you just said you'd like to try it. Besides fighting – causes – they tend to work a little differently these days. You'll get used to it.”

“ _When?”_

“Now you sound like a fractious toddler.”

Arthur exhales noisily. Merlin separates piles of chopped herbs and dried blue petals, pushing them neatly into a batch of twenty little heaps and whispering to them so quietly only Arthur can hear.

“Did you just -?”

“Shhh. Yes. Now bag these and hang them up with the others?”

“I am _not_ your servant.”

“And I'm not yours either any more. It's not an order, your Highness, just a request for you to be useful. Stop grumbling.”

-x-

“Ugh, I cannot _believe_ I just spent a whole afternoon bagging herbs and – stocking shelves, and, and – what did you call it? _Customer service?”_ he makes it sound like something both shocking and humiliating.

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

“It is! Look at me – am I the _service_ type?”

Merlin snorts laughter -

“Am _I?”_

“No -” Arthur swivels his head round on the sofa to watch Merlin curiously, pouring drinks in the kitchen - “No, you're not, are you? And yet -” he frowns, Merlin can tell he's frowning that scrunchy faced little frown without even having to see it - “Merlin, why _did_ you serve me for so long? You're right, it's not in your nature any more than it is in – huh, maybe even less than it is in mine. Shut up.”

“Because it was you.” Merlin sinks down on the sofa beside him, handing him a coke.

“And you're still pouring my drinks”

“Habit.” Merlin tries to brush it off with an airy hand gesture, picking up the remote control from his sofa side.

“No, it's more than that,” Arthur persists - “You don't have to any more, as you have repeatedly pointed out all day; I'm not a king and you're not my servant any more. So why do things for me? Don't say _habit_ again.”

“Okay, I didn't say it like _that –_ I just – like to, I suppose? It's how I – oh, shut up Arthur.”

“You shut up.” He takes a deep breath - “So we're equals now then? I think I like that? Somehow it sort of feels like we always were, doesn't it? Does it?”

“Sort of.”

“But I don't think I know who I am yet. In this world.”

“Right now you're some twat who's taking up a _lot_ more than his own half of the sofa. Budge it.” Arthur moves a foot a few centimetres and considers himself budged.

“Anyway -” Merlin goes on, more seriously - “I don't know if most people know who they are, where they fit in; the world's got that much stranger, that much – I dunno – further from nature in many ways? It's hard, and you've only been back a day, some old folks are still trying to figure themselves out.”

“And you? Have you _figured yourself out_ yet?”

“I've been around over a thousand years. I figure we keep changing, adapting, you know – just got to keep up with all this evolutionary paranoia, as someone put it – I forget who -” he shrugs - “Mostly I just know I am – and I always have been – yours.”

“Mine.” Arthur smiles and it lights up the room, when his smile meets Merlin's eyes he grins back, the light of it golden in his face. Arthur does this to people, of course; he always has done, and yet somehow, Merlin thinks, it's Arthur who just looked at him like he was something special. Even in the knowledge that he probably _is_ in so many ways this makes his heart ache warmly in his chest like he's only a boy yet after all.

“What's that?” Arthur looks pointedly at the thin black rectangle in Merlin's hand.

“ _This,”_ Merlin points at the TV – “is a television, and _this -”_ he waves the remote like a magic wand- “Is a control for it. Didn't wanna just turn it on without warning you – I – guess it's gonna look a little odd, but I kind of think you're going to love it?”

“Go forth -” Arthur waves a kingly hand - “Do your thing.”

Merlin turns the TV on and watches, suppressing a laugh when Arthur's eyes half pop out of his head in surprise but he suppresses an actual shout and stares for several seconds before the bombardment of questions Merlin was expecting begins. Merlin shows him television, movies and Netflix. By the time they have moved onto an early explanation of video games and a demonstration via Skyrim -

(“So you're like this Dragonlord right?”

“Merlin you _are_ a dragon lord.”

“I know that. But most people aren't. This is what we call _fantasy_ now.”

“We've _seen_ dragons – all – okay, most of this. Not the cat people, what's with the cat people?”

“Yes but – I mean to be fair most people think of _us_ as fantasy too?”

“Oh. So why play?”

“Fun and escapism?”

“Seems like day to day to me.”

“Shut up and try to even walk in game – no – no you're going off a cliff – here -”)

By the time Arthur has begun to get a hint of a hang of it, he has stopped wondering quite so much about what they might do for the rest of their lives.

__x__


	7. Chapter 7

7.

“What are you _doing,_ Merlin?”

“What, you're complaining?”

“Ugh, don't _stop –_ no that's – that's nice, but what happened to _I'm not your servant any more, take your own clothes off, blah blah blah with a side order of 'god Arthur don't you know how to undress yourself'?”_

“Arthur?”

“Merlin?”

“Shut up.”

“Rude.”

“I'm so sorry – shut up, _My Lord.”_

“ _Merlin?”_

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because you told me to shut up?”

“Umm – okay, what?”

“Why _are_ you taking my clothes off, considering?”

“Really, you're not very observant, are you, your Highness?”

“You see, you always did get heavier on the _My Lord_ and _Your Highness_ just before sex.”

“And there we have it. Shut up and lie back.”

Finally Arthur just smiles and does so. Not for the first time, but certainly for the first time in far, far too long, Merlin finds himself more than half wanting to pray for help; _help me, I am suffering with how beautiful you are, help me because if I don't hold this in I might begin to tell you and if I start I'll never stop –_ and then, not for the first time, Arthur catches a scrap of the prayer in the corners of Merlin's eyes and he grins and says -

“What?” in the tone of someone who knows exactly _what,_ someone who knows how beautiful he is and how close Merlin is – how close he has always been to trying to express it – but at the same time, Merlin knows that if he _did_ say it, Arthur would be awkward about it. In the past, any expression of love he has come close to has made Arthur frown as though he does not understand; any compliment could leave him confused as though he does not believe it after all. He remembers Arthur trying to explain it once, becoming tongue-tied as he always did when it was important – that he heard himself praised so much it had long since ceased to mean anything, to the point where hearing, even such awkward endearments as Merlin could manage left him feeling like he could not quite be true. So for the thousandth time now, Merlin bites his tongue and says -

“You know what.”

He wishes he had the words; that they were something he was better with – the words to say the world is better with you in it, the world is re-shaped by the blade of your smile, you shine like a symphony in gold in the shoddy light of the bedside lamp, your skin is- is- is burnished marble and rippling wheat in the nervous starlight and my breath nearly stopped at the sight of a breeze moving the hair on your forehead, here in this small room above a Somerset shop, with the sloping ceiling and the night slipping in from the open skylight, here where you are like a dream come true in my bed, in my bed with the navy striped sheets in a room with too many clothes on the floor, don't you know? Don't you know what a miracle you are?

The sense of it flashes through him without any levitation towards the lips. He pushes it back to rest on the bed inside him, where also lies a thousand and a half years of sobbing for this miracle's absence. In the end, he just lets his palm slide across Arthur's shoulder and the top of his arm with a little bit too much tenderness, and he kisses him yes in the shabby golden glow of the bedside lamp, even that light illuminating Arthur as though he was some kind of Greek god and not just a person after all. _But he is just a person,_ Merlin thinks, dipping down to kiss him, Arthur leaning up towards him with that neediness which never fails to surprise and delight, kissing Merlin like he is the one who cannot believe what he is getting – _just a person and often an idiot –_ and it is this, his absence as a person, an idiot, someone to annoy, hassle and enchant Merlin in equal measure that he has missed this whole time, the absence of him as a warm body in their bed; fuck, all the mornings that have broken him waking up convinced he could feel Arthur behind him or in his arms or turned away from him with a foot planted in Merlin's leg – they were always touching at some place, even when turned away, even when Arthur was clinging to the side of the bed or planting his face in a half dozen cushions – still, he had always reached a lazy arm or leg to Merlin for reassurance even when he stirred without waking. This had been the most painful part of _missing –_ feeling this loss like a missing limb that still itched him. He feels the sob well up in his chest even now, feeling his chest against Arthur's, their skin together closing over a wound ripped into him from loss. He kisses Arthur now to make up for lost time, burrows into him like a hibernating creature, lays claim to him with hands and mouth and insistently grinding hips.

“Merlin?” Arthur's eyes dart open and he's looking at Merlin curiously, one hand on his chest to hold him back a moment, even though he's breathless, chest stuttering with the needy hunger he will absolutely deny later. But he ignores his need for a moment, frowning - “Are you alright?”

What a question. Merlin hardly dares consider it. No, no of course he's not alright, he has gone over a thousand years so broken he did not know how shattered he was until now when the press of their bodies together feels like healing so strongly it hurts, as though torn skin were being sewn together with a blunt needle. He's healing hard, mending himself against Arthur, needs to be inside him to get close enough, to be even halfway himself again, wondering what that means he's been this past millennia; no, he's not alright, he cannot even begin to tell Arthur how alright he's not. But he wants him, wants him far too much to ruin the urgency of the moment by even beginning to try and say all this, so in the end all he manages is -

“I missed you.”

“Yes.” Arthur's face registers understanding, registers the quickly followed awareness that actually he cannot understand, registers sympathy, settles back into the simple need for closeness, for all this frenzied tension to seek relief.

“I wish -” he says, and Merlin groans and takes his face in his hands before he will allow Arthur to say he wishes he had missed him too, half falling beside him in the bed, the both of them rolling into each other face to face and chest to chest, Merlin's hand going naturally to Arthur's cock which thankfully shuts him up, though that was, not necessarily his first intention. All of this new opportunity for honesty between them, and there is still so much he cannot say, but god it does not matter just now, not with his own cock aching like this, pushing to fit into his hand as well, leaking as he slides them both together, Arthur's hand on his, now both of them moving their cocks together in an age old dance that Merlin has only dreamt of, remembered in wretched wanking across the centuries, not one bit of his lust for Arthur fading or easing with time. It doesn't matter. For a while, for as long as they can make it last, not a single thing matters except the slide of their cocks and the sweet friction of skin and hardness and grasping hands. So much relief and sensation and thunderous heaving, moaning like a storm breaking, and they are together storm and earth and sky all roiled up in each other and Merlin comes shouting like the wind in the trees and Arthur shakes like the torn earth shivering with his teeth in Merlin's shoulder and the pain is as sweet as the pleasure as they pant and shiver and drip sweat into one another's pores and Merlin falls back knowing they won't speak of this, at least not completely, knows that even now, now that they have a name for what they are, they won't be able to do anything quite as easy as just follow this obvious declaration with the actual words _I love you._

But it doesn't matter, not for now. Now is the close breathy hold of satisfaction, the floating together in a bed suddenly like a cloud, a hammock for soft loose limbs and beating hearts. Now is quiet and perfect. If every moment were now, then everything would always be wonderful, and Merlin thinks, like he though once before a thousand years and more ago – _Oh, oh I can have this then, oh -_

And it's not that there is not more to this love than _just_ sex, not that missing Arthur was only ever about the times like this, not at all that there was not so much more to miss, so many words and exchanges, arguments and smiles. Not that Merlin has ever been unaware of who Arthur is, the heart and soul and even occasional idiocy of him, but by god the physical was a lot to miss and it's not long before he feels himself stirring again and Arthur feeling it, half sleepy but not quite asleep raises an eyebrow and asks -

“Merlin, really?”

“It's been one thousand five hundred years,” Merlin mumbles, starting to push more insistently against Arthur - “Can I – I want -”

“Mmm, yeah.”

“Turn over?”

“Are you telling me what to do?”

“Yes. Hand me that jar.”

“This?”

“Yes, well done, welcome to the wild world of twenty first century lube.”

Arthur snorts a laugh which turns into a groan when Merlin runs a hand down his back, a firm, possessive stroke from shoulder to hip that says _mine_ more certainly than the word could express. He muffles whines into the pillow when Merlin's fingers work him open, and Merlin, for the first time, lets the crackle of magic that always hovered just below the skin at these moments come out. It feels to Arthur like vibrations; but more than that, like some vital force drawn up from the earth itself, sparking off pinpoints of pleasure across his skin and inside him -

“What -” he breathes deeply, shuddering, half undone already which makes Merlin smile and slide his fingers gently out of Arthur, lining up his cock instead - “What _is_ that?”

“Magic,” Merlin smiles, slightly cocky, slightly shy - “Can I?”

“I think I might murder you if you don't.”

He yells when Merlin slides into him, fists balling up the bedsheets, biting the corner of a pillow because ' _we do have neighbours now, you know',_ as Merlin had mentioned to him earlier. It feels like – it is a case of – being filled not just by Merlin, but by magic,like tongues of fire that do not burn, just lick wickedly at all the right parts of him; it's like taking flight and feeling himself take root all at once, like earth and air and fire and the water in his blood crashing waves through all the tides of him and them, all the streams of their being flowing in and out, intertwining like snakes, like ribbons, like the two of them knotting together in constant flow and weave. In the end it's like power shooting into him and out of him all at once and he feels like he could do anything, make anything happen just by willing it.

In the aftermath he tries to express this; he mostly manages -

“Is that what magic's always like?” he asks - “I mean – having that inside you – is that what it feels like all the time?”

“I dunno. I'm not inside me.”

“ _Merlin -”_

“Well I'm not. I _don't_ know.”

“Merlin, for some all powerful sorcerer you really are an exceptional dumb ass. I was _trying_ to be serious.”

“I mean – it's not – sexual – I mean, alright I suppose so – sometimes? But it is a bit like that – power like you said, like – like something coiled up inside me that I can let loose, but it's, I suppose it's usually more controlled than that.”

“That was – uncontrolled magic?”

“Um – yeah – Arthur?” Arthur makes a strangled sound and buries his face in the pillow - “Arthur are you alright?”

“Yeah – I'm – phew – I – I mean I don't think you realise how unspeakably arousing that is.”

“Said you were lucky to have me.”

“Did you?”

“Sure I must have. Anyway, I thought it.”

“Merlin, you're an idiot. You – will do that again, won't you?”

“I should think so. There's time now. Time for everything.”

It occurs to Merlin for the first time that he has no idea how long they really have, if he will grow old now, if he will die. If Arthur is still the same age as him a thousand years younger. He does not know if he has been gifted Arthur back for the rest of a real life span, or until something catches up with them. He has no idea. Even if they have a whole human life span it's still a drop in time compared to the centuries that have passed. But it doesn't matter, he realises, however much time they have left it's the same no matter how long. It's together. It's a lifetime. It's forever.

__x__

**So my beta got a, over-excited at there being sex and b, was a bit tipsy when beta-ing this so apologies if it's not as smooth as usual! I love them dearly though thanks _zedrobber :-)_**


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

If Arthur had wondered in those first few days what he was going to do with his time, now that he was back on Earth in a brand new world he did not have to rule, it was a question that did not take long to answer. It was strange, in fact more than strange, it was a shock; not only to have suddenly woken up in a world so different from his as to seem like one of utter fantasy but to have no position of responsibility that he could yet see within that world. As the weeks went on, he found himself loving and hating this by turns. There was a sense of loss in not having power, in not ruling the country, in not being a legend, known to everyone, capable of affecting change and making all the important decisions; a sense, yes, of having nothing to do without these responsibilities. Some days, or hours at least, found him going stir-crazy for not having anything to fight and when that happened he would fight the only thing available – Merlin. He would find himself going on furious walks – complaining about missing his horses and dogs – but finding the frustration abating on the top of the Tor, or on Wearyall Hill, out of breath from taking it too fast, thirsty and sweaty and satisfied, happily grumbling at Merlin for being too far behind him with the water bottles. It didn't give him a sense of purpose back, but it soothed his temper. That was one of the things about Arthur, Merlin would think, shaking his head with fond eye rolling – however quick he was to fractiousness and flarings of temper he was twice as quick to calm back down into sweetness.

Still, if the loss of responsibility was something Arthur struggled with – and yes, at times it was – it was also something he found himself more and more able to enjoy. It was like being on holiday – Merlin had had to explain the concept to him, Arthur realising for the first time that it really was not something he had ever had. The truth was he could not see himself above what he no longer called – due to Merlin's savage eyeballing him for the phrase – _the common masses,_ when it turned out that the things they got up to were so enjoyable these days.

They worked, Merlin explained, like he did. Work wasn't tilling fields and physical labour any more, not for a lot of people – work was a different sort of beast. For Merlin, as he explained, it was the shop, the making and selling of potions people believed in and which worked but not so magically as to seem suspicious. Though he never would have admitted it, Arthur was starting to discover that he rather enjoyed helping out in the shop, even alone sometimes when Merlin was off – he still, it seemed after all these centuries, went out into the countryside to gather his own herbs – or with Ellie, who without quite knowing exactly how much of a man out his own time Arthur was, had enough perceptive understanding of something she could not quite explain in him to be able to teach him more and more each day about the way the world worked and how one moved through it.

_We're all out of time,_ she said – _in our way_ – _or if not time, then place and purpose, no point in working out how to fit in when there's really no pattern to fit into; you just gotta work out how to fit in with yourself._

That was smart, Arthur thought, she spoke with the wisdom of someone with magic, did Ellie, and at the same time reminded him a little of Gwen.

And then aside from work there was the internet. It was hard to believe that everything about computers was not a result of magic, but after a long and arduous attempt at explanation Merlin had started to get it through to Arthur that coding was more like knitting patterns than witchcraft. This at least made a little bit of sense, although if Arthur were being honest knitting patterns had always seemed like witchcraft – or at any rate some bizarre alchemical formula – anyway, so it was possible computers were never going to entirely demystify themselves for him.

Anyway he was learning, he had found Google, Wikipedia, the history websites and in the hours that he ended up reading was slowly beginning to fill himself in on the last one thousand five hundred years as well as the world as it was.

There was a lot to dislike, he found – although if he thought about it – and he did a lot – a lot that was awful had always been awful; tyrannical rulers, prejudice, class systems that let millions starve while a select few had enough money to fix it all. At first it had dismayed him but eventually he realised in many ways it was no more so than it had always been, only everything was on a larger scale now because the world was on a larger scale.

This was the thing that frightened him, the size of the world as people now knew it. Fascinating yes, but mostly terrifying – and he wasn't even ready to think about Space yet. While Arthur found himself intensely curious about the existence of other countries, other parts of Albion even – although he had to call it England now he supposed – knowing how much of it there was was, for the moment, only served to make him less interested to even leave Glastonbury. He would climb the Tor and look out, and what he saw from up there honestly seemed like enough world to him. The concept of over the horizon was fine, but not in the sheer scale that his online investigations were showing him existed. He was torn between the urge and curiosity to explore and the fear of it. There was no hurry, Merlin kept insisting, and Arthur knew himself well enough to know which instinct would eventually give out.

Only for now it did seem like they were on pause; no pause wasn't right, that implied stagnation and there was nothing stagnant in staying in one place. It occurred to Arthur that a lot of people were probably learning this in the current climate. With books, television and the internet travel meant so much more than physical movement; what he was learning through his eyes and mind and awareness stretched his perception a great deal further, he realised, than mere movement could ever do. Besides, this break, this holiday from the rest of the world, from responsibilities was glorious and having decided to let it be for a while Arthur opened himself to it whole heartedly. There was food for starters – modern food was incredible. Merlin had warned him some of it might taste fake, might not seem as natural as it once did, but to be honest that didn't bother him nearly as much as he supposed it might have done. There were sweet things nowadays like nothing he had ever tasted. There was an ease in acquiring food that had left him boggling in the supermarket. To be able to walk into a place – a shop, Merlin had said, though it was like no shop he had ever imagined – and see so much choice, see every kind of imaginable food in so many varieties! It was like a dream, bigger than the dreams he had even had as a child of massive banquets, untold spreads and selections of fruits and meats, these marvellous potato things – cheeses – he _really_ loved modern cheeses, pungent or mild, Merlin said he was becoming a cheese fiend and that was fine by Arthur – not to mention all the varieties from other countries and the fruits he had never seen before – bananas and tomatoes and oranges – things Merlin had to explain to him only grew naturally in hotter countries – god, they were amazing! Then there was chocolate and cake – so many many different kinds of cake – and if not all of them were good then damn it there were so many of them that were incredible – Arthur had stopped caring about Merlin's jokes about his belt holes and positively made up his mind to get fat.

After their first visit to the supermarket – an experience Merlin had insisted utterly erroneously he was never going to permit Arthur to repeat – Arthur had announced that he thought he could quite happily live in the twenty first century forever.

“Well that's good then,” Merlin had said - “Because you're going to.”

This had seemed rather strange to Arthur, subduing him – a little – with the realisation that he had until this point been treating this world like some sort of faerie realm from which he would eventually return.

Subdued had lasted about as long as the next snack however, which was babybel, a whole net of six (with, alright, one for Merlin) – and then Arthur was once again yelling about textures and tastes and how happy his mouth was.

There was more that was good about this world than just the food of course. There were textures too. All sorts of fabrics and materials that had not been invented in what he still thought of as _his_ day, some of them so soft and so shiny they were a joy to touch and see. There were things to see and do he could never have imagined and there were video games. Arthur wasn't trying, just yet, to get his head around how these things were made but he had taken to gaming with not entirely remarkable ease and aplomb. He liked “Fighting things” as Merlin put it, especially in what Merlin referred to as the “Fantasyrpgtypegames” a phrase that meant no sense to Arthur even if he had managed to level his Nord up to forty in Skyrim in the course of a week and a half -

“Without cheating!” he insists now.

“You don't have to tell me that. You've been stuck to that game what, six hours a day? For the last week? Is now a good time to tell you about the negative effects of playing for too long?”

“I thought you gave me that talk on how blaming video games for violent behaviour was a whole lot of bullshit?”

“Yeah, not quite the effects I was thinking of.”

“You also said, and I quote “Don't be silly Arthur, of course you can't literally get square eyes from looking at a screen for too long.”

Merlin snorts, remembering the alarm on Arthur's face when he had first heard that expression.

“Yeah it can still be bad though! The other day you didn't drink for four hours! I had to actively feed you biscuits just to keep you in snacks!”

“Yeah I had to retrieve the horn of Jurgen Windcaller, didn't I? Horn's not gonna retrieve itself, you know! Alhough actually, yeah – I suppose it kind of had – and then I accidentally got in a fight with a giant and had to run away from two mammoths! One of which glitched by the way – is that the word? It just sort of fell _upwards –_ into the sky!”

“Welcome to Skyrim. Arthur, you know what's happening don't you? You're becoming a couch potato.”

“I in no way resemble a potato. Though I am delicious.”

“It's an expression, you prat -”

“Oh like the square eyes?”

“Yeah, means you're turning into a slob, a layabout, a nerd. Have a drink, you have to remember to hydrate.”

“Hydrate yourself. Go on then, hand me one.”

“ _Not_ your servant.”

“ _Mer-_ lin!”

“Give me your glass then.”

“Love you.”

Merlin beams. This for him, is the most wonderful thing about the twenty first century- hearing Arthur so casually say things like that. It's almost better, in a way, than the after dark whispered _I love you's_ that are so fraught with intense meaning. The first time Arthur just let one of the casual ones slip, Merlin had felt his heart about to go off screeching like a steam kettle. He had stopped himself making the noise just in time but he had still perked his head right up, grinning – no _beaming_ at Arthur from his side of the sofa with dazzling eyes.

“Oh shut your face up,” Arthur had said, quickly becoming embarrassed - “You know I do.”

It was a curious thing, Merlin thought – if not entirely unsurprising – how Arthur still got awkward about expressing his feelings. Even though it was clear how utterly something had changed between them – both by necessity and as something that came of a relief – he still got almost adorably tongue tied when he began trying to say anything emotionally important. It wasn't that he didn't feel it – that much was always aware to both them, always had been, just that he struggled to say it. For Arthur it was a case of having been brought up to put his own wishes second, to treat his own feelings as secondary to what was important, especially if those feelings were as inappropriate as what he had for Merlin always had been. Even with how different things were – with the fact that there were words to describe what they were now; indeed he had acknowledged both out loud and in his heart that they _were_ these things, they had even permitted others to know that they were, perhaps after all, he thought it was obvious to anyone who saw them together, even if he did try not to look at Merlin in a manner that seemed as obvious as the way Merlin looked at him – well, maybe he was sucessful there, and maybe not; he didn't know. The thing was, ignoring what felt to him only like a very long sleep, it had really been days to him since they were in Camelot and he was married to Gwen, loving Merlin - that wasn't in doubt, but never able to be open about what they were to each other like he could be now. At least, he knew in theory that they could be now.

The thing was. Perhaps there were a few things – one of them was that yes, it hadn't been that long for him. There was a part of him still mourning for Gwen and all the others- for everyone they had known; a part of him mourning what was beginning to feel like another lifetime. He did not want to admit to Merlin how behind he felt, did not want to feel slow or resentful of the fact that Merlin had had all this time to come to terms with it and he had been left behind, felt like a bumbling fool who needed to get over it faster than he was. At the same time he knew this wasn't fair, that he was lucky. That Merlin felt no joy in the life he had led and he supposed – he knew – that if it had been the other way round he would not have felt that either. He knew that he wasn't talking about these losses as much as he wanted to be, just as he knew Merlin wasn't talking about the years alone, the waiting and everything else, and it wasn't _fair,_ Arthur thought petulently, it wasn't fair that there was so much they no longer had to keep hidden from each other but here they were still hiding whole chunks of their feelings to spare the other tha pain of hearing about them. Of course another huge part of him was used to having to do things he did not want to do, and he had never had the option even to consider putting his own happiness first before, so even the fact that he was thinking about all of this – difficult though it was – well, it was a start perhaps.

Besides, it was hardly as though the difficult things and the painful memories dominated these early days. It was not as though all the things they were doing and learning was a mere distraction either, it was life. A new life, a fun one, so very much of the time, and if it felt to Arthur sometimes that it had to be selfish of him to even have a good time, well, Merlin said when he brought this up, that was his father's fault an awful lot more than it was anyone elses.

-x-

In addition to food and sex and video games, Arthur had discovered television and movies. Once it had been explained to him, he found, more to the point, that he was loving these things. Merlin had Netflix, HBO, Disney + – Arthur had learned about these things with wide eyes and hours of hogging the remote control. He had fallen in love with Disney; the stories, the songs, the very concept of animation which was frankly a lot easier to get his head around than other kinds of film

\- although since Merlin had told him to think of them as plays, but ones that had been recorded and could last forever – that part was getting a little easier too.

Then eventually, Merlin had come in one day to Arthur looking completely perplexed and staring at the screen with that expression of bewilderment that furrowed between the eyes and left his lips slightly parted.

“What?” he had asked - “I thought you understood Disney now?”

“Yes but – but – Merlin, is this supposed to be _us?”_

“What are you – oh, I see.” Merlin snorted a little laugh. “I mean – yeah, yeah kinda.”

“But – but - you're an old man here – with an owl – and – and I mean, really Merlin, this is you? You're a blithering idiot! Huh, alright I suppose it does have a certain degree of accuracy.”

Melrin took a gentle swipe at Arthur's head with a cushion.

“But I'm a – I'm just a kid here, and I was never brought up by a Sir Hector! And there's no Camelot and we – we're turning into animals now? Could you do that? Merlin, tell me you can do that, that'd be brilliant!”

“I can't be an animal Arthur. Or, at least, I've never tried.”

“And – and – and – _hockety pockety wockety whack??”_

“Ohh, you should see some of the other versions.”

“ _Other_ versions?”

“Yeah there's loads – your story – it's been told a thousand times, always different ways, you've got modern versions, classic versions, versions from Morgana's point of view, stabs at versions from _my_ point of view, a truly crap one about Lancelot – one version that's half entirely about Perceval – that was wild, not to mention the books and plays oh and _Spamalot –_ it's _-_ maybe best if we don't talk about Spamalot.”

“People really like the story of – of _me?”_

Arthur had paused the film by this point to listen and think. Merlin had come to join him on the sofa. Arthur found himself kissing his fingers; they smelled of rosemary, thyme, sage, frankincense and myrhh. He wondered idly if Merlin smelled of Glastonbury or if Glastonbury smelled of Merlin.

“It's more than just a story,” Merlin looked at him with shining, darkening eyes - “It's a – a – dream, a hope, an – ideal I suppose? The better time, the golden age of Camelot – doesn't matter what it was really like, the point is that people can imagine a time when things were wonderful, when the land was governed fairly, when the people were happy, all the people, not just the wealthy ones, a dream of a ruler who cared, who made sure that everyone was happy.”

“Is that such an impossible dream?”

“You can only ask that question because you're you. You _were_ that dream, Arthur – the once and future king – that's why there was always the part where you come back. The promise of hope, that there was something good enough to heal this country, to pull it back from all the crap it got itself into – all through the ages – even now – maybe especially now after all -”

“After all here I am,” Arthur murmured, ignoring the TV completely now and pulling his feet up under him, drawing himself into a bundle on the sofa like he had taken to doing a lot when he was thinking hard - “I'm the ideal then. The – the concept of hope – me?”

“Oh shut up you're not all that -” Merlin smirked, trying to lighten it; Arthur rolled his eyes and Merlin nodded, growing serious - “But yes – always did seem it to me – there was always something about you, something that made you brilliant, if you must hear it – something brilliant enough to inspire people for centuries, to keep them hoping. That was you.”

“So no pressure then,” Arthur forced a smile though it was hard to hide how much pressure it was. Still, he was used to that.

“Hey -” Merlin frowned, sympathetic to the look Arthur could not hide from him even if he did hide it from everyone else. He squeezed Arthur's fingers in a gentle press - “No pressure,” he nodded gently, meaning it.

Arthur smiled back, but it was hard not to think about the load of it. What being a concept meant. He remembered thinking about it the morning he woke up. He wasn't quite sure how it had happened. He had just been living his life, doing what he was told to do; there had never been much question about it, never even really seemed to be any choice. And he hadn't railed against that, or never much out loud anyway. Oh, he had been on the brink a thousand times, he had said things to Merlin that he would never have said even in the quiet of his own head, let alone to anyone else. He had questioned his duty, his position, his moral standpoint, everything. At first it had been questioning his father, wanting to do right by him but also wanting to do right, realising that these two things were not always the same and finding the act of ruling the kingdom to be a daily, even hourly balancing act in weighing up the greater good and attempting to achieve that. The truth was it had never made him _feel_ like an ideal, like somebody or something brilliant. It had really just made him feel tired. He remembered wryly all the times, after a long day, he had fallen into bed saying he could sleep for a thousand years and well, maybe he really had worked as hard as it sometimes felt, because hadn't that turned out to be true?

Now he was back and he was being lazy – and part of him was more than fine with that, part of him thought maybe he deserved it after a lifetime of capitulation to the wishes of others. So yeah, he was treating himself, he was having daily cake and sex and sofa time and it felt good, _brilliant_ even, it felt, to be honest like a life worth fighting for, and if it was close to the daily lives of most people then he could see why they all needed to be fought for as well. This life was a treasure but – sigh – but he could not help thinking that he did not deserve it, or at least should try and share it as widely as possible.

So all these people, over the centuries, people nowadays looked to the age he had made as a golden one, looked to the idea of _Him_ as one to inspire and lead and save. It didn't make him feel great the way playing Skyrim and drinking coke on Merlin's sofa did. It sort of just made him feel under pressure and rather useless. He wasn't a saviour of anything, he wasn't any kind of beacon in the dark parts of the world – he was just _him,_ doing what he did, whatever he could work out in his own mind was the best thing to do at the time, day by day, minute by minute. He was not sure – and the frustration of this was immense - what he could do for anyone that each person was not just as capable of, not now that he was nobody, a couch potato as Merlin put it, and a shop worker except -

Except in his heart he could not really bring himself to think that this in any ways made him _nobody._ They were brilliant things to be! And all the people he saw around him living similar lives – they were doing brilliantly too! Just be doing a job and enjoying themselves around it! It made him happy to see people happy, thrilled to see how much people had nowadays, or could have. He just wanted to be one of them, not to have this knowledge that he was some Once And Future King who had to really _do_ something. It didn't feel like him, the Arthur he was hearing about in these legends, and if it was him he was surely some poor shell of an ideal. He wanted to stay like this forever, in this flat in this wonderful town in this beautiful corner of the world he didn't _want_ to have to fulfil a destiny, or god forbid _go_ anywhere.

But he did. He did want to help. Sigh. He always had done, even when he wanted to just leave his position behind and become a farmer – and he had daydreamed about _that_ existence far more than he ever let on to Gwen. This was the duality of his life, he supposed; wanting to be no-one, to be able to shake of the weight of expectation – but wanting to be in the position and have the tools to help whoever most needed to be helped.

“Merlin,” he says, decidedly, coming to the end of the reflection and bringing decision with it - “We have to go out and see the world – _I_ have to go out – will you show me? Show me what's going on out there?”

Merlin looks at him as though he knew the entire run of thoughts that had been making their way through his head, sighed heavily and nodded.

“It's not that I don't love - ” Arthur gestures the room - “You. This. This life. This holiday. I really do. I don't _want_ anything else. But I have to, don't I? I was brought back to help so I have to at least go out a bit? See the world, what's going on – everything.”

“I've had us packed these last few days,” Merlin nods heavily - “I thought London would be a good place to start?”

“Guide me? I'll try and do what's right.”

“I know.” There was a sheen of tears in Merlin's eyes - “I know you will. That's why I'm already packed. I love this too, I do, but we'll – we'll see what we see and do what we do yeah?”

“Yes. Thank you Merlin.”

“I'll call Ellie, ask her to take care of the shop a few days. We already talked about it. Tomorrow then?”

“Alright. I'll brave your car.”

“In the meantime – what do you say we get takeaway and finish this stupid film?”

“Right!” Arthur beams - “I wanna see what happens to squirrel me!”

__x__

**This chapter happened because 1. Skyrim and 2. If I have to have the image of Arthur with "That's what makes the world go round" stuck in his head then so do you :-)**


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

When Merlin wakes up the day is just begin to lighten, the first pale edge of dawn creeping along the lower ledge of the skylight; he can almost see it seep into the room from the open crack that lets in the air, almost touch the dawn like a solid thing, dripping a line of soft light into the centre of the bed enough to illuminate the room just a little in outlines of goldish grey. Arthur, still asleep, is mostly a bundled shape with its back to him; a bundled shape, Merlin is not at all surprised to discover, that has taken the vast majority of the duvet with him, most of it not even over him, just bundled in his arms like a cushion. Arthur always has to hug something, drape his arm over _something,_ and Merlin would be sore that the _something_ was hardly ever him except Arthur does look so sweet like this, and he has explained on many occasion that Merlin is “Just not soft or plush enough and should probably eat more cake” and really, it is very hard to argue with an Arthur like that.

It's not that he likes getting up this early. It's just that years of being Arthur's servant got him so used to having to do it that he has done so naturally for the past millenia and a half, and now with Arthur back – well it would just feel wrong to have anyone wake _him._

Arthur is a dead weight beside him – no, he doesn't want to put it like that – too long of him being truly dead to be happy with the word – he's just a weight, a nice hard real weight, solid and heavy and golden where the top of one shoulder and one golden head are visible beneath the covers. He doesn't need to see Arthur's face to know all the lines will be smoothed out in sleep, just one little frown between the eyebrows and his lips in a pout that make him look about five, just as innocent and untroubled as a child. He hates to wake him; he has _always_ hated to wake him, wanting to treat this Arthur, this little creature of an Arthur, like a tiny animal held in his palm. But he asked and so Merlin kisses his shoulder, strokes his hair -

“Arthur!”

Nothing. He tries again. Arthur makes a bubbling sound, happy and sleepy, and wiggles just a little as if expecting more kisses even in his sleep.

“ _Arthur!”_ Merlin shakes his head, obliges with the kisses, shakes the shoulder a little. Arthur makes a grumbling noise at this and burrows down hard.

“OI!” Merlin not-quite-yells near his ear - “Arthur! Wake up you lazy git!”

“Urgggggghhhh -” Arthur groans, turning laboriously in the bed, like, Merlin thinks, not entirely flatteringly, a chicken slowly turning on a spit. He glares at Merlin with an eye and a half - “Bugger off, Merlin.”

“You asked me to wake you up early! I've been lying here for ages!”

“You could have done it gently!”

“I tried!”

“Uff yes, of course you did. Ugh, what time is it?”

Merlin looks up at the steadily lightening sky – it's that time of day when if he looked for long enough he would be able to see that lightening as a visual process -

“About half past six”. He has a phone within arms reach, more or less, but centuries before such things have made guessing easier than looking.

“ _Merrrlin!”_

“What? Ear.ly. Get it?”

“No,” Arthur burrows back down, sticks his head under a pillow. “Oh no. Nononononono. No Merlin. Big no.”

“So you're not gonna come quietly then?”

“Nope!”

“So I'm gonna have to do the thing?”

“What thing?”

Merlin whips the duvet away from Arthur like it's a tablecloth trick. Arthur, suddenly naked and exposed to semi daylight, yells murderously and kicks out with all limbs.

“You asked, sunshine!”

“Do _not_ call me sunshine!”

“Would you prefer I suggested you rise and shine?”

“Merlin.” Arthur sits up huffily, attempts to glare seriously, but he's sleepy and his hair is sticking up at all angles, so really it's not easy - “You may be very important in this world, Mr Oooh I'm Immortal I- can-has- magic now -”

“I should never have let you see cat memes”

“But I am _still_ the Once And Future King even if I'm not technically a king any more and I can still kick your lazy no good arse. Give me that duvet back!”

“No!”

“No?”

“No – my lord?”

“Merlin!” Arthur lunges for the duvet, but it's on the floor; Merlin tackles him and they both go down in a pile of limbs. Arthur on the floor still curls up around the duvet, insists he'll just sleep here then. Merlin whisks it out from under him and back onto the bed by magic. Arthur makes a leap for both bed and duvet, misses and blames Merlin's magic again.

“I think -” he says, yawning and beating Merlin to the bathroom - “You should be banned from using magic just to piss me off.”

“What, and ruin the habit of a lifetime?”

“So – all those times I took a pratfall -?”

“Well – not _all_ the times – and I had _nothing_ to do with the donkey ears.”

“I thought we'd agreed never to speak about the donkey ears!”

“Nope. That was you and Gwen. _I_ can say what I like about donkey ears.”

“You really are the worst -”

“Yeah yeah I know, now get out the shower before I make it go cold.”

“I am _so_ attacked in my own home.”

“It's _my_ own home.”

“Get my coffee ready, will you? I'm coming out.”

“Yesh, Mashter.”

“ _Merlin!”_

Merlin gets the coffee on and grins to himself all the way to the shower and back. Cranky early morning Arthur is both his favourite and the worst. Most likely to actually be a dick to him, tip water on him, scrub him, pummel him or do any other number of annoying things, but then a lot of this is a side effect of Arthur being less awake, less guarded, easier with the world and more himself because he has not yet quite woken up to the constant cycle of wondering about what being himself entails. By the time he joins Arthur at the breakfast table, Arthur is steadier, filling a second coffee cup half full of milk and offering Merlin some slightly anaemic looking toast, but honestly he _toasted_ it _himself_ and the fact that he feels a need to tell Merlin this with exactly that inflection just makes Merlin fond and frankly happy with his not – quite – bread toast.

The funny thing is, he realises, as they set about the business of getting their things together and checking everything is turned off and the flat left safe, even though it feels dangerous in many ways to be taking Arthur out into the wider world it also feels good. He's not sure why it _does_ feel dangerous, but certainly it's something more by far than the comfortable existence of the last few weeks, staying in the flat or shop or nearabouts and more to the point having no real purpose or plan. Ergo, it's dangerous. The world always is, he supposes. Whatever happens, he knows it will be different from the simple ease of these past weeks and he cannot help but regret that. All the same, it feels good, like they're off on an adventure. In fact the feeling in the early morning air is exactly that of the days they would saddle their horses and ride out into the forests and fields around Camelot to right a wrong, to undertake a quest. This feels like that, a quest, an undertaking – he can see the purposeful light in Arthur's eye just like it used to be; at the same time, the sense of obligation, just like he used to have.

“Right.” Merlin slings their bags into the boot and then stops beside the car - “Car. Are you ready for it.”

“What's it's name?”

“What?”

“I heard they have names.”

“Is this relevant to whether or not you get in it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Yeah, um – he's called – Archemides?!”

“ _Archemides?_ Like the owl?”

“Yes. Like the bloody owl Arthur are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Arthur wheezes when he manages to stop laughing - “Yeah I'm good. Alright Merlin let's get in Archemides.”

Merlin holds the passenger door open, dryly eyeballing Arthur like he cannot for a moment see why this is funny even though it was funny in his head when he thought about it after all.

“You good there?” he asks as Arthyr crouches down very gingerly, poking his head into the car slowly and looking around as though trying to work out how the entire thing functions with just a first glance.

“Fine – fine – can I – what's the word? Drive?”

“Completely and emphatically not.”

“Why not? I can ride a horse.”

“I mean, do you want the long list or the short list? Or the simple No It's Not Legal answer?”

“But _why_ is it not legal?” Merlin snorts; Arthur sounds a like a fractious child.

“You need lessons – and to pass a test, and honestly it's not that easy. Now get in the car!”

Arthur prods the passenger seat suspiciously but finally sits own and waits with hands in lap for Merlin to close the door for him and come round to his side.

“Seat belt?” Merlin looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“Do your seat belt up! Oh here -” He sighs like a tolerant parent and leans over Arthur to fasten his seat belt for him. Arthur sits placidly permitting this like a good child.

“Right, now this gonna feel real weird at first, bumpy and you might feel sick. Then it's gonna feel _really_ fast – roll with it – you'll like it.”

Arthur sits quietly as Merlin backs them out of the drive then onto the top of the highstreet, looking around at everything – like an early morning meerkat, Merlin thinks, all senses alert and silent tension in every line of his body. Thankfully it _is_ still very early which makes crawling down the short stretch of highstreet up to the main road easier, though Arthur does announce quietly that he feels sick once before they get there.

“Open the window a bit, it'll help – ahh no, that's the door! Close the door! Close it! Other handle! That's it. Small bit small bit that's freezing! Okay, better!”

Merlin takes a deep breath, wonders if they're going to make it all the way to London, and turns out onto the main road. He flicks his eyes left just enough to notice that Arthur moves his body in the direction of the car's movement exactly like he would if he was on a horse; he smiles to himself and switches gear. Arthur doesn't say anything but after a few seconds Merlin glances at him again. His eyes are wide, excited and scared, and he's looking around at the landscape as they start to pass through it, going faster and faster – faster, Merlin realises, than he has ever seen it pass before. He cannot help but feel quite some sympathy in Arthur's going from horseback to this in a matter of weeks when it was all a gradual progression for him.

“Okay?”

“Fast!” Arthur exclaims, sounding so honestly breathtaken that Merlin has to smile.

“Okay, though?”

“Think so – it's – it's – _cool!”_ Merlin chuckles -

“Still not sure it sounds right when you say _cool.”_

“I mean – I'm still not sure I understand how chilly means good but it _does_ sound good – oh! I can talk!”

“Um – yeah? S'been some time – con – gratulations?”

“I mean in the car, you wally. I don't – I thought – oh shut up Merlin – I thought I was going to have to talk fast to keep up with moving so fast but I can talk – normally!”

“I mean, _can_ you though?”

“Shut _up,_ Merlin – you know, I should get a sign that just says “Shut up Merlin,” - save me half the amount I have to talk to you.”

“You're so funny, I think I might crash and die.”

Arthur swears and goes a little white.

“Not really. Trust me. I'm _good_ with a car. Also I have magic. I could make it drive itself if you wanted to see?”

“I emphatically do _not_ want to see that, no Merlin.”

“Your loss. So okay – I wanted to ask you – can we stop some places on the way to London?”

“You ask me this _now?”_

“I mean we only decided to go last night, I've been thinking about it. It's a long drive and we'll need to have some stops anyway for you know – food and stuff – so – there's a couple of places I think you might wanna see.”

“I'm in your hands Merlin. Godshelpme.”

“What was that?”

“You heard. Fine, so what's our first stop?”

“I'd like you to see Avebury; it's only about an hour away, for starters I think that's long enough at once for your first drive, also it's – it's kind of special, _also_ it's where I was the day you came back – I think it's part of the reason I knew – I dunno – anyway, can we?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

They drive on.

__x__


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

As Merlin suspected when thinking about first getting Arthur into a car, he does not stop talking for the near hour's drive to Avebury. After a few minutes cooling down process in which – Merlin judges from sideway glances – Arthur seems to settle himself into the car, adjusting himself to the speed and what Merlin realises must seem like ridiculously rapidly changing landscape – well, after a few minutes of quiet adjustment, he starts with the questions, mostly a string of _what's thats?_ that make him sound like a curious toddler. Different buildings, road signs, roundabouts, electricity pylons – nothing new to him goes past them without commentary and curiosity from Arthur, and Merlin, trying to put himself in his shoes, answers patiently, usually amused and always – really – quite enjoying having to think about all the things he and everyone he sees living around him has come to take for granted.

The pylons are a relief, to be honest; making it easier, he suspects, to explain the whole electricity business that he just knows Arthur hasn't been able to get his head around this whole time. And to be honest, thinking it through for him in ways that he will understand helps Merlin to understand it all better himself. People don't think enough about how things work, he reflects; maybe if a lot of people brought up to such things having always existed tried to really work out _how_ they existed they might think it was magic too. As they drive on though, heading onto the motorway, for the most part one long very straight stretch of road, he notices that in between the demand for explanations Arthur's continual commentary begins to include a lot more recognition of the things that have not changed either.

It's still early morning as they head down towards Wiltshire and the sunlight is gold on the fields, some of them recently harvested and the hay bales stacked in semi pyramids or still at intervals throughout the fields.

“Are those hay bales?” Arthur peers out the window, squinting in the light off the wing mirror - “They're a funny shape.”

“I think they're more practical that way, easier to transport too. Everything has to go further these days.”

“So people still use hay then?”

“People still use just about everyhting they used to. You'd be surprised how much that doesn't seem to make sense stems from something that does.”

“Hmmm -” Arthur continues to look out thoughtfully, elbow balanced oddly on the edge of the window, hand curled under his chin - “Do they plan the fields around the road or did they cut the road through the fields, do you think?”

“I mean – as somebody may have told me not too long ago, for a peasant I know very little about farming. I think it's different wherever you go though, depending on the age of the road and the field -” he tries to add something cleverer to this assessment, to think about it a little better but he's honestly distracted by the sheen of gold on Arthur's windowside arm, the bright haze of it in his hair; he's as golden as the fields, as shining as a new day. His eyes are as blue as the sky and look out on this unfolding world like a fresh chick looking out of its nest. He remembers a line from a version of their legend – _the king and the land are one –_ it didn't make sense in that context, not to him then, but it makes sense to him now. Arthur is sunshine and sky and fields and wind and earth and honestly Merlin isn't sure if he really needs to _do_ anything to heal the land when it feels to him like Arthur's resurrected presence does that just fine on and of its own. He wonders if this was what brought him out here so often, seeing all the colours and contours of Arthur in the countryside around them. Partly that anyway. As they turn off towards Avebury, he remembers the rest. Even from inside the car he can feel the thrum of the Earth here, the pulse of the old religion coursing through the ground beneath them like underground streams. He can feel it like he could have felt a breeze or rain or the warmth of sunshine. He wonders if Arthur can feel it too, but does not dare ask. He knows Arthur doesn't have magic, of course he knows that but – but – he is from a time so much closer to that magic and he has – Merlin tries not to smirk since it's a deep thought, really, not an innapropriate one – well, he _has_ been touched by magic. h.

“We're nearly there,” Arthur says.

“Yeah.” Merlin nods quietly - “How did you know?”

“Well – you turned off the really really big road, and you went all quiet like you always did when we were close to somewhere magic.”

“Did I?”

“I mean – I think so? Yeah. I always thought you were just girly for old things and nature, but it was – magic wasn't it? You felt something.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, feels the smile pull bigger, fill up with more happiness than he even had known he felt. It is good to be known, to be understood, even – perhaps especially – if it's only by the one person who matters.

“I'll try to not behave like too much of an ass then.”

“Can I get in writing that you concede to at times _behaving like an ass,_ end quote?”

“You're pushing it Merlin. Do not.”

“When have I ever not pushed it?”

They turn into the car park still bickering, like, Merlin thinks happily, an old married couple. The part of his brain not occupied in happily squabbling with Arthur goes into a daydream imagining them as an old married couple. Amazing really, to see how much his life has turned around in the last few week's since Arthur's return. Because he can see it now, imagine a future of them together, getting old - if they do that - arguing, playing, sleeping, loving. He can imagine the whole string of daily activities, all the things to do within a life done together and he realises how much of the last thousand years was taken up with the gaping hole of Arthur's absence, how the very fact that he was doing this or going there were always things that were tainted by the constant crushing knowledge that he was doing them _without Arthur._ He wonders if he will ever be able to admit to Arthur the complete pain of this, to tell him how close he came to often to just giving up, to testing what it would take for him to just die and join him. But he can't do that, not yet, there is a whole thorny net of reasons why.

“Merlin, are you even listening to me?”

He realises he had started to think too hard, probably failed to retort to some terrible cutting jibe.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, you've been here a lot.”

“How could you tell?”

“Well you pulled – is that how you say it – into this spot like it was- I dunno – yours. Like you were tying up a horse.”

“Oh -” Merlin realises that he has done this, pulled the little car up under a crab apple tree that gives enough shade in summer not to boil the car up on the inside and protection from the rain on the wet days. He grinds to a stop with a crunch of gravel beneath the wheels and a little nod like it's a job well done - “Yeah. I come here a lot.”

He turns off the car, gets out, on chivalrous impulse gets the door for Arthur like this is a date – and maybe it is, in a way.

“So -” Arthur gets out, manfully manages to stop himself from staggering a little at the cessation of what, after all, was a startling amount of movement, and looks around - “What's here?”

Merlin smiles; that's the thing about Avebury. Unlike Stonehenge, which announces its presence for at least a mile down the motorway, standing against the skyline like the monolith it almost is – Avebury hides itself within the curves of its own landscape. Not a secret stone circle, far too big for that, but one that holds itself to the land like a lover to the other, following the contours of the slopes and meadows, trailing looping patterns of stones even onto the edges of the village.

“You'll see.” He leads Arthur down the narrow path between the car park and the village running along the edge of a copse and a low wall on the right that after a short way opens out onto the fields, and as soon as it does Arthur stops to stare -

“Oh!” He exclaims, wide eyed again - “It's a place of the old religion!”

“Yeah.”

“I mean a – like a ritual site, not just like Glastonbury.”

“Yeah. They even still use it for one sometimes, especially summer solstice.”

“Yeah. I'm still coming round to that one.”

Merlin has explained to Arthur, of course, that there are still people nowadays who follow the old religion, who believe in magic, some of whom even come close to understanding aspects of how it all really was, and it's impossible to live in Glastonbury and not know about these things after all, just like one has to know about the visitors who come for the old festivals – more, really, than there even were back in their day, what with how much bigger the population is now and with the old religon not being outlawed.

“Come on,” Merlin says gently - “You can walk around them – there's a lot – three circles of stones spanning quite a few fields. You can still go up to the stones here.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Well, Stonehenge – you'll see that later – they've had to rope it off except at festivals so you can only walk round the outside.”

“Why?” Arthur follows Merlin over a stile off the road and into the first field.

“People being dicks,” Merlin shrugs. Arthur frowns -

“I was a dick,” he says, regret aching in his voice - “About magic. I probably shouldn't touch.”

“No, you should – here -” They walk around a crescent of low stones, footsteps crunching the damp grass. Merlin smiles at the idea of people seeing them together, imagining how they must look. Arthur still dresses really a lot like he used to, only with different fabrics, and he – well he's the same, mostly in blue, Arthur mostly in red, he can't quite picture them like an outsider but he knows how good they must look and wonders if it's a shallow thought to have here. But no – to delight in every aspect of the two of them together – he's not sure there can be anything shallow about that.

“Here -” he stops by the first large stone, taller than either of them and wide. Arthur tentatively reaches out a hand to press palm down against the rock, like a cautious pat to a nervous horse; he's so gentle, Merlin can't help but feel everything in him flutter at how gentle Arthur can be when he tries. He spreads his fingers out across the stone's surface, his head all but leaning just above it, almost as though he's listening to it. Merlin smiles.

“Oh!” Arthur exclaims in a low gasp, trying to not shout - “It's -”

“Yeah?” Merlin cannot entirely hide the eagerness from his voice; he knows that if Arthur does not feel it here it's unlikely he would feel it anywhere. He never realised quite entirely before how important it was to him to one day have Arthur feel this.

“It's – warm! And sort of – tingles? Like – like it's breathing, like – like the whole Earth is breathing. Merlin – are these rocks alive?”

“Everything's alive -” Merlin swallows hard - “You feel it, don't you? That's magic – the magic in everything. It's what I feel – what I've always felt – everywhere – all the energy of the world, the lifeblood of the Earth, I suppose; we're all caught up in it – you, me – all of us – that's where it comes from when I – I can feel it in me -”

“When you do magic? You're drawing it up – out of all of this? This force in the Earth – in everything – like pulling up a plant by the roots -”

“Yeah but it's – it's like you leave the plant behind, as well? Ypou use it but you don't destroy it, see. Cause you can't destroy energy, you just change it. That's science now too – that's why magic all has to balance, you can't make something happen without something else altering to match it.”

“So science -” Arthur's forehead scrunches up with thought - “That's the same as magic?”

“Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes they're different ways of explaining the same thing – usually I suppose.”

“And this balance – that's why -” Arthur searches his thoughts for an example and colours up a little at what he finds - “That's why it always rains when we have sex?”

Merlin snorts;

“You noticed that too? Yeah. Sorry about that, but probably. You had to bring it it down, didn't you?”

“It was the best example I could think of -” Arthur smiles wryly - “Sorry. I suppose it's also – why you can't bring someone to life without taking a life or why – well why you have to give up something to get something.”

“Yeah.”

“And so – you feel this energy – all this power running through you all the time? Like it runs through the stone?”

“Yeah.”

“So much power -” Arthur looks at Merlin with what look like rather hungry eyes - “Doesn't it – I dunno – feel hot? Burn you up? Hurt?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you think I'd feel it – if I'd come here without you, or if – if it was back then?”

“Maybe. You're connected to the Earth too, we all are, but you maybe are more than most cause you are the king – I mean – even if you're not any more.”

“Hmm – can I – I don't want to sound stupid, but can I have a moment – with this stone?”

“Yeah -” Merlin looks at him curiously, realises he's not actually surprised to notice Arthur' eyes shining with unshed tears - “Course, I'll be -” he gestures a vague sort of _over there,_ stuffs his hands in his pockets and wanders off. When he looks back from a distance, half way up the low rise, Arthur has turned to face the stone, his hand still splayed across the warm thrumming roughness of it, facing turned towards the stone with his forehead almost against it. There is a tension in every line of him, a stillness against the morning mist that begins to rise up from the grass. It seems to Merlin, from here, as though Arthur is praying, such is the held poise and reverance of his stance; a sort of humble melancholy that feels a lot like churches. And though perhaps that's not what he's doing exactly – Merlin, guessing, suspects he may be offering up some kind of apology to the land – for being gone so long, or for so long following in his father's beliefs, Merlin's not sure – in a way it is what he's doing even if it's not.

-x-

He feels as though he could lie against the stone, press himself full bodied against it and feel as though he were sleeping, rise and fall with the breathing of the Earth, turn cycles of sleep with the turning of the Earth. Here, in this circle, in this field, held close to the rock and solidity of the world he feels cradled, feels held up by the energy of the planet. He turns with its turning, orbits the sun, like a wheel inside a wheel. He feels eternal and forever, like he could never stop. He thinks about how long he has lain like this, suspended, hung up carefully cocooned in the clasp of the world, dreaming and waiting. He thinks about dying, how hard it was to fight, how hard he tried to fight, to stay when Merlin asked, to do it for him, for the world that wanted him. He feels the overwhelming gratitude fo knowing that the world _has_ always wanted him, the people who have needed him – he feels grateful for them too, guilty for leaving. It didn't hurt to die, not really, it was easier than suffering the wound that took him; it hurt to come back, but he's glad that he did. He feels guilt again, lapping back and forth at hgim like wavelets – the guilt of leaving Merlin, leaving the others, leaving this world to which he owes so much. At the same time, pressed here against this bed of stone, he could go again; he could slip off as easily as if the other side were just an arms reach away, rising up out of the mists. He wonders if he deserves to be alive, if this feeling that death would be easy means it wants him back, but he hears his own heart beat and the stone against his face pulse with it. It feels as though his heartbeat tremors through the stone, that it pulses down into the Earth and out throughout those ribbons of eergy going out across the land. He wants to give back, to give back all he can to this world, he always has but he feels his failures so hard.

“I'm sorry.” He whispers it, a secret to the rock - “I'm sorry I failed you so often. I tried to do what's right. I didn't always, I followed my father blindly down paths that hurt you, I didn't heal the land he had damaged. I trusted in the wrong things. I'm sorry. I never did enough. I'm sorry -” There are scars in the energy of the land; he could swear he feels them like cuts in his own flesh. He wonders if Merlin feels them too, if they hurt him. It hurts him to think of them hurting Merlin.

“I'm sorry – if it was my fault – any of it – I'm sorry. I didn't understand. I didn't believe. All this power, this magic in everything and I didn't know. I don't even know who I'm talking to, if anyone's listening. I'm sorry I didn't fulfil my destiny. I swear I tried. Just let me know what to do to help. I will try harder I promise. I promise I'll do better. Really. Er....”

It doesn't sound like he wants it to and he trails off, but he's finished, he knows, said what he meant to say and he just hopes it's enough, that the Earth has heard, that the sky carries his promise on its breath. He hopes the mists have come to carry his intentions, his wishes, his intent through this world and between worlds. He hopes he does not too often feel that sweet easy pull to be gone. He feels terrible for it, relieved that the pull to stay is stronger. He sees Merlin at the top of the rise, standing on the long curving verge of grass that leads around the edges of the circle, curlng snake like towards the nect ring of stones. The slope is slippery in the rise of the morning mists and Merlin reaches out a hand to pull him up. They stand, hands tight clasped in the cool new daylight.

“Okay?” Merlin asks - “You good?”

“I -” he exhales, shaky but strong; he feels, standing here, like he has roots going down through his feet, tethering him to the Earth, to his life - “Yeah. I'm good. I don't want to go.”

“Go where?”

“Away again. I don't – it pulls sometimes? The easiness of sleep – but I _don't_ want to. I wouldn't leave you – not again. Not again -” he breathes; he's crying, crying for the guilt of ever feeling that tug - “I _did_ try.”

Merlin wraps him in a fierce hug, wondering if he needs to tell him he doesn't need to feel this guilt, but he remembers that part of himself – a part he hates well enough – the part that _did_ blame him for going and knows Arthur won't not feel his guilt any more than he could stop feeling his own.

“It's okay,” he says, because it is now - “It's okay, I know you wouldn't. I know you did. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Sometimes. I know you always do what's right.”

“I don't,” Arthur says stubbornly - “And that's – you _know_ I never want to say wisdom, yeah?”

“That's okay. It's kind of not anyway, I got it from _Buffy.”_

“That's a TV show?”

“Yeah. Great sources of wisdom. I even mean that.”

Arthur laughs, through the tears it shakes him a little but he sniffs, rubs his eyes and detaches himself a little, if still squeezing Merlin's hand.

“I was promising to do better,” he explains - “Try harder than last time. I didn't get a chance to do everything I should have, did I. Heal the land. Bring magic back. I wanted to – at the end – I wanted to do so much.”

“You'll never believe you might have done enough will you?”

“Ah Merlin hello, I see we've met.”

“Shut up. Anyway, Gwen did, it you know.”

“What? Bring magic back?”

“Yeah. There _was_ a golden age of Camelot, and it wouldn't have been possible without you.”

“I just – left you and Gwen to do all the hard work.”

“I mean – mostly Gwen to be honest – I wasn't much good for a long time, you know, and – well after all, you _do_ knowI'm allergic to hard work.”

“You got something right.”

They walk along the ridge of land hand in hand; it's a long, curling mound, like a giant snake asleep beneath the Earth, the sun rising behind them morning warm and september cold all at once; it's light gold and silvery across the fields amongst the stones. For a while they don't talk, just pick their way through clumpy grass and rocky earth, between cowpats and around thorny trees, touching each large stone in the circle that they pass as though it is some kind of good luck ritual which perhaps it subconsciously is. After a half hour or so of following the weave of the stones they find themselves back at the village which is barely more than a few houses, a gift shop and a pub. They stop at the pub, and Arthur takes a table outside it near the road while Merlin goes in for a beer and a coke, pushing the former across the table to Arthur.

“I must say,” he announces, taking a big drink and setting the pint back down - “The beer's not what it was.”

“Oh I'm so sorry, do let me magic up some thousand year old beer.”

“Can you _do_ that?”

“You've known me how long, and still don't know sarcasm? No, you clotpole, I can't do that.”

“Do people still say clotpole?”

“ _I_ do. I know one you see.”

“Ha ha, very funny. You're not drinking?”

“I'm driving!”

“So?”

“So you can't drink and drive!”

“Why?”

“I mean, you've _been_ drunk Arthur, you know what it's like - you can hardly walk -”

“I _can_ so -”

“- let alone drive. Just imagine the damage you could do.”

“I'm imagining the damage _you_ could do.”

“Well quite. And I'm the one who _can_ drive. So shut up and drink your manky beer.”

It's no longer much of a surprise to Merlin that Arthur does as he's told with very little further complaint and, in spite of his grumbles, quite a bit of evidence of satisfaction. He sips his drink and breathes in deeply, looking out across the road, over the low hedges, the stones which look so scattered from the gaps in the circle and the spread of them but which aren't scattered at all, there are patterns in everything, he thinks, a kind of purposeless purpose to everything; he finds himself curious and nervous about where this adventure will lead them.

“You come here a lot,” Arthur says, suddenly, not a question. Merlin looks back to see him watching him with his head tilted just a little to the side in the bird like way Merlin is sure he does not know he has when he's thinking about something.

“Quite a bit yeah.”

“What do you do?”

He thinks about the last time, about everything he felt, everything that went through him then and cannot suppress a little shudder.

“I mean, if it's too personal -” Arthur trails off. He doesn't actually make it sound like he really thinks it would be alright for Merlin not to answer his question either. It almost _is_ too personal, but he doesn't say that.

“Last time I was here was the day you came back,” he says slowly - “It was late afternoon – I was just on the verge of coming back to the car when I felt – I can hardly say what it felt like – almost like an earthquake, like a ripple – and it wasn't in the Earth itself but it almost felt it, like it might throw me down it was so strong, like something moved in the tides of the Earth, in the energies of the place. It was like the world stopped and started again and all the stones started to sing all at once, they were humming, I could _hear_ it – almost really hear it – and the thing was, when I looked around at the other walkers a lot of them had stopped still like they could hear it too. Something changing all of a sudden in the currents of the world. It was like the Earth stopped spinning. Then it started again and the song calmed down and everything felt better than it had been before. The stones were still singing but it wasn't like that wrenching change and the song was – it was good? Joyful. I knew that whatever had changed it was a good thing and then I knew, like – like somebody had poured knowledge like a potion into my ear – I knew you were back and I had to leg it, get back to the Tor as soon as I could to find you.”

“How did you know where I was?”

“I dunno, it seemed obvious. As soon as I started driving I knew where I was going. It seemed simple just because – that was where I'd seen you last. And I was right.”

“You think I'm that important that what? The whole Earth cares if I come back?”

“I don't think you would have come back if it hadn't. Albion's time of greatest need, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Arthur rolls his eyes - “Don't you ever get sick of being – you know – prophecied? Of – having a destiny? Don't you ever feel like – and I'm sorry if this sounds vulgar when everything you just described sounded so good – but don't you ever just feel like destiny's bitch?”

“Oh yeah. Shit. All the time. What, you too?”

Arthur raised a nearly emptied glass, clinked it against Merlin's with a chink that seemed to ring loud in the clear cool day;

“Here's to being destiny's bitch.”

They drain their drinks.

“Ready to carry on?” Merlin raises an eyebrow in question. Arthur gets up, stretches. Ready.

“Another thing I was wondering -” he says as they set off back towards the car park.

“I mean, do the questions ever stop?”

“When I know everything. So no. What were you doing _before_ the world stopped and started – only it sort of feels like you were purposefully avoiding telling me.”

“Funny that.”

They walk for a couple of minutes.

“So you're not going to tell me then. Why?”

“Because -” he sighs, slumps, doesn't turn to face Arthur and carries on walking knowing he can't avoid this forever - “Because I'd just come to the decision to see if I could die.”

“What?”

“I couldn't find solace any more. Not even in the stones. You have no idea how one thousand five hundred years feels without – without the only thing that makes life good – _don't_ comment – I was done, alright. I couldn't any more. I came to that conclusion a lot over the centuries, but this time I'd decided, I really was going to see if I could end it just – just – but I didn't, okay? I mean obviously, It's alright now, I'm over it.”

“Because I'm here.” Arthur says it so gently Merlin can almost cope with the feelings.

“Because you're here.”

__x__

**Sorry for taking forever it's been a lousy few weeks but here I am and ok it's not festive but it is in time for christmas! So a happy time for all who celebrate! Enjoy it for me imma working nights now until saturday! :-)**


	11. Chapter 11

They end up in a row overlooking Stonehenge. It's not quite how Merlin imagined taking in that view would be. After driving in what turns out to be a rather awkward silence after Avebury, Merlin eventually pulls onto the hard shoulder just past Stonehenge.

“Alright,” he says, and it comes out confrontational to start with, not that he wants to be angry but the confession was so raw and Arthur's pensive silence pisses him off; not because it should, he knows that, not that he cannot understand, in his logical brain, why Arthur might be keeping silent, but because – because, he supposes, he'd rather be angry with Arthur than annoyed at himself- “Talk. What is it?”

“What do you mean _what is it?”_

“You're being very quiet.”

“Sometimes I do that.”

“No you don't. You're cross with me.”

“No, I'm not.”

Just to entirely fail to prove his point, Arthur snaps his seat belt off, gets out of the car abruptly and slams the door. Merlin sighs, stares out the window at the nothing of the road for a minute and then follows Arthur up the verge that looks out across Salisbury Plain.

“It's impressive,” Arthur says flatly.

“Don't change the subject.”

“I wasn't aware there _was_ a subject.”

“Look, I'm not doing this all the way to London.”

“Doing what?” Arthur's terribly fake innocent tone winds Merlin up more than he ever even remembered it doing. “Yes, alright then,” Arthur snaps - “I'm cross with you, alright, is that what you want?”

“No. That's never what I want. But you are, so you may as well tell me why.”

“I don't -” Arthur feels so cross about it he wants to shout, but when he comes to it realises he can't - “I don't like you wanting to die without me.”

“Um – I'm afraid you don't have a say in that.”

“But it's – it's just, lame and – sad – and – pathetic of you! You should have other things to live for! You can't just – there's more than just me. It's _stupid.”_ He turns his back on Merlin, sulking with him but also knowing how ridiculous this objection is considering the very obvious question Merlin could put to him in response. But he doesn't. Not straight away.

“You see,” Merlin snaps back - “This is why I don't tell you stuff.”

“Oh, you don't tell me stuff? How much more have you not told me?”

“That's not – nothing! But I spend all this time holding back, not telling you how bloody rubbish it was without you, how many damn times I nearly tried it – right from the beginning – I almost got in that fucking boat with you, you know that?”

There are people from whom it just sounds wrong to hear swearing; Merlin is one of them. It doesn't make Arthur feel any more inclined to be less angry.

“ - _and_ so I spend all this time feeling bad about the fact that I'm not telling you things, things that are bloody pressing at my chest like weights, okay? And I'm doing this to stop _you_ from feeling bad and then you bug the crap out of me so I tell you, and this is what I get? This is what I get, just _You're so lame Merlin, don't be pathetic?_ It's not exactly going to encourage me to tell you the truth.”

“I mean, I don't know why you're suddenly so het up about telling me the truth to be honest, Merlin. You had no trouble lying to me about the magic for a good ten years.”

“You – you – you -” Merlin splutters, even angrier because of course he _does_ feel bad about that and he knows Arthur knows it - “- arsehole. I don't know why I _did_ miss you.”

He can feel anger and magic whipping around in him like a little tornado ready to burst from him; it's a mood in which he could hurt someone so easily, so he presses it down, and it's so much effort with the anger that he bursts into tears and promptly, furious with himself for _that,_ turns away and storms off along the verge. Arthur stands for a moment feelng like there are worms in his chest, making him feel a little bit sick in his throat. He hadn't meant to say that, hadn't even known any part of him was still troubled by any of it, and he had just so recently promised himself to be a better person. His eyes sting, but he doesn't cry, because – well – because boys don't. He's been told that for so long it's hard for him to cry even if he let himself. He stares out across the plain for a few minutes, watches the clouds gather over Stonehenge. It looks dark and depressing in the grey light, a place with the soul sucked out of it by the price charged for entry. He looks up at the sky which has started to go grey all over. All that out of the blue. He looks back at Merlin, sat on the grass in a bundle of tension, arms around his knees, forehead down on his arms, and goes over slowly.

He sits down next to him.

“I'm sorry,” he says eventually, not looking at him - “That was low. I know why you didn't tell me about the magic.”

“Oh you think _that_ was the only part that was low?”

“Merlin, don't be a dick. I am _trying_ to apologise here.”

“Yeah well -” Merlin sniffs, the anger gone out of him with the tears. He wipes his nose on his sleeve - “Don't strain yourself.”

“I'd feel the same,” Arthur says, awkwardly - “If it was you I – I wouldn't want to hang around either. I don't know how you did it all this time.”

“If you'd be the same -” Merlin finally looks up and at him - “Why be a dick about it?”

“Because I hate to see you sad? So of course I hate to think you'd be _that_ sad, for that long. You should have told me before – except of course- yeah – I'd have been a dick sooner.”

“So – you want me to be happier, so you go full dick? _That_ makes sense.”

“I'm not good at – feelings Merlin – you know that. I mean I have them, great at having them, have them all the time, big ones – I'm just bad at voicing them. Telling people the important stuff, it's not – it's not something I should do, I mean – it's selfish of me – having feelings.”

“Don't be stupid.” Merlin blows his nose, shfts a little closer.

“Thing is. I don't know how to be sad, right. Thought of you hurting – that makes me sad. So instead of being sad I get angry. Then I get – what was the wonderful phrase you used – _full dick?_ I just hate to think you can't enjoy anything – I mean live for anything other than me.”

“I enjoy things,” Merlin shrugs - “I just need you to be near me when I do them. Or at least – you know – alive. You know what _did_ keep me going?”

“What? Magic?”

“No. It was still you. The promise that you'd be back. I just – I thought it would be sooner. Every day I thought it would be sooner and well – well you know how rubbish waiting is. You're even less patient than I am.”

“Am not!”

“You don't like waiting for a sandwich. Imagine holding out a thousand years!”

“I know. I'm sorry. I _said_ I was sorry. Can you stop sulking now, you're making it look like rain.”

Merlin looks up at the sky.

“Oh yeah,” he sniffs. “Yeah that was me. Sorry. And I didn't mean it either, you know – of course I know why I missed you.”

“It's my good looks and charm, isn't it?”

“How about knowing I'll never be the biggest idiot in the room?”

“Hey!”

Arthur punches Merlin on the arm, Merlin pushes him back.

“I'm sorry I got mad,” Arthur says for the half dozenth time - “I wouldn't have if I hadn't known I'd feel the same. Somehow. You know.”

“I _do_ know. I wouldn't have got mad at what you said about me hiding the magic if I hadn't felt bad about it anyway.”

“So we're just a couple of dicks together?”

“Couple of dicks,” Merlin nods, heaving a huge relieved sigh. “Yeah. Hey -” he takes Arthur's hand on the ground beside him - “Watch this. Now _this_ is impressive.”

Arthur follows the path of Merlin's gaze to the dark clouds over Stonehenge which slit apart as he watches and begin to be blown off into the air, scattering apart as a burst of sunshine seeps through like honey, streaming visible gold onto the plain and casting the shadows of the stones down the fields towards them. He smiles at this flood of light which seems to paint the place magical all over again and Merlin turns to him with an ever so slightly smug grin.

“Show off,” he says.

**__x__**


End file.
